Conference 7.286::sports_91

    Naturally, there is no quick & easy answer, but it seems there has to
    be a separation between the revenue-generating sports with potential
    pro careers looming, such as football, basketball and baseball (to an
    extent) and other "minor" sports that are a little closer to the real
    world. 
    I read an article Sunday about how collegiate swimmers who were
    good enough to contend for Olympic positions would be penalized by not
    being allowed to train enough. The article said that swimmers in
    general (and other "minor sport" athletes) have higher GPAs than most
    athletes. The idea of limiting the amout of time devoted to the sport
    assumes that athletes will devote the extra time toward schoolwork, a
    BIG assumption for many. The minor sports athletes realize that, while
    being the best water-polo player in the world might make you Big Man On 
    Campus for a while, but after graduating, you still have to beat the
    pavement & try for a real job, just like everyone else, hence, they
    take academics a little more seriously than a guy who is convinced that
    he's the next $2 million man.
    
    Tom 

    	I saw a TV report over the weekend about Janet Evans. She
    	said she went to Stanford so that she could swim. If this
    	proposition takes effect, she said she will have to leave
    	college to train for the 1992 Olympics.
    
    	Scott

    The Prop38 debate is starting to smell of gross reverse-sexism
    (genderism?): Women's sports benefit largely from revenues generated
    by grid & men's hoops, yet they don't want to be held to the same
    set of rules which by design target those two gold mine sports.
    
    MrT

    > yet they don't want to be held to the same
    > set of rules which by design target those two gold mine sports.
       
    Is this based on Janet Evans' comments or is some semi-official
    movement I haven't heard about underfoot?  I happen to agree with the
    athletes who have traditionally excelled academically yet are
    effectively being told how to live their lives by the NCAA.  I think we
    both agree that the goal is to remove the educational abuses that
    exist, and those abuses almost exclusively reside with the two "gold
    mine sports".  If there's any merit at all to what we've all pretty
    much agreed on over the years, the source of the money shouldn't enter
    into the equation...         
    
    glenn
    

    Another issue on the table at the NCAA convention is the restructuring
    of division I-A.  This proposal would change the requirements for a
    team to participate in division I, and would reportedly bump between 50
    and 70 schools out of divison I.  I imagine most of the schools affected
    would be schools who compete in divison I in basketball but not in
    football.
    
    Meanwhile, the college bowls decided to impose their own date for
    inviting teams to bowl games if the NCAA goes ahead and drops their
    date of inviting teams.  The bowl committee also will fine any bowl
    that violates the deadline.  
    
    So it looks like we're saved from possible lopsided matchups on New
    Year's Day by bowls inviting teams in September.  I guess the bowls
    realized that they would be hanging themselves by having no deadline
    for inviting teams, therefore increasing the demand for a playoff even
    further.
    
    Joe

    �	I saw a TV report over the weekend about Janet Evans. She
    �	said she went to Stanford so that she could swim. If this
    �	proposition takes effect, she said she will have to leave
    �	college to train for the 1992 Olympics.
    
    So ???  So, Janet, then leave Stanford and go swim for 92.  What's the
    big deal here ???  Stanford University has never been, is not now, and
    never should be Janet Evans' personal swimming institution.   Or anyone
    else's private domain for any athletic endeavor whatsoever.
    
    She went to Stanford so she could swim ???  Gimme a break.  You go to
    Stanford to become educated.   Swimming is supposed to be an
    extracurricular activity.   If she wants to go to Barcelona to win an
    Olympic medal, that's fine.  Go right ahead.   You say you might have
    to drop out of school to do it, Janet ???   Sorry, dems da berries. 
    Come on back when you've got your medal and you can continue with your
    studies then.
    
    I might be persuaded that this latest attempt at NCAA reform hurts the
    so-called year round "minor" sports when compared to the revenue
    generators.  But I fail to see where Janet Evans loses in this case. 
    What am I missing ???
    
    Bob Hunt

    � This proposal would change the requirements for a team to participate
    � in division I, and would reportedly bump between 50 and 70 schools out
    � of divison I.  I imagine most of the schools affected would be schools
    � who compete in divison I in basketball but not in football.
    
    If this passes, you can kiss the Big East goodbye.   Georgetown,
    Villanova, Seton Hall, St. John's, Connecticut and Providence all do
    not play Division 1-A football, if they play it at all.
    
    Bob Hunt

Janet Evans currently has a 3.0 GPA. She should not have her practice time
mandated by the NCAA simply because of abuses at other schools and other sports.
She is simply stating that she can not adequately train for the olympics if the
current proposition passes. She has shown that she is capable of both going to 
school and competing in top-level sport at the same time.

Why should she (and others like her) be penalized?

Janet Evans loses because she is capable of doing both and the NCAA is saying
that she must choose to either swim or go to school.

I also assume that if she chooses to swim and drop out to train for the 
Olympics that she will lose her scholorship and will be forced to pay for her 
own education when/if she decides to come back to school. If any student/
athelete must make this decision and then can't afford to go back to school 
then everybody looses.

Propose a rule based on the current GPA of the student not broad based rules
that penalize the balanced person that can do both things.

Metz

    
    I didn't hear the proposal, but I seriously doubt big revenue
    generators like the Big East basketball schools are affected.  Joe
    mentioned that he assumed *most* of the schools affected would be ones
    small enough that they can't support a Division I football program, but
    the NCAA isn't going to toss out a cash cow like Georgetown. 
    
    In any case, as it stands now the phrase "Division I participant" is 
    meaningless.  What sport are we talking about?  Are the reductions
    we're talking about only for basketball?  That wasn't clear to me...
    
    As for the Evans thing, Stanford certainly is under no obligation to
    serve as a training ground for the Olympics, but since the US
    Government doesn't directly support amateur athletics like other
    countries do (and rightly so), college scholarships/training become a 
    fact of life.  Considering the alternative, I think it's a fair deal.
    It takes us taxpayers of the hook, the athlete can train at the
    university's expense, and the university receives the prestige of
    his/her affiliation and whatever small amount of revenue might be in
    swim meets, etc.  If the NCAA really intends on imposing these
    restrictions on practice time, she's out of luck and I guess that's too
    bad, but subsequently look for an already weakened US Olympic program
    to go right down the toilet.
    
    If the Olympic athletes in question are honoring their scholarships by
    maintaining their grades even while putting in all the hard work they
    do, I can't begrudge them this opportunity.  It's a hell a lot easier
    for me stomach than the basketball/football mess, even if those
    athletes are the revenue generators...
    
    glenn
    

Why should Janet Evans drop out, Bob, if she makes the grades AND wants
to swim as much as possible?   Do you favor the same course of action for
Kenny Anderson?   Shaquille O'Neal?   Michael Jordan?   The opportunity for
a good student to get a free education based on his or her athletic talents
should not be de-valued.   It should be made more valuable by making sure
the students who will make the most of the opportunity get them.  

I think the NCAA is attacking the problem from a completelt wrong angle.
Their primary concern should be focused on the big revenue producing sports -
men's basketball and football.    Tie scholarships to graduation rates...
Link  television revenue to graduation rates...  Require third-party
assessments of all DIV. I athletic programs for public disclosure and link
revenue sharing to those rankings...  

The NCAA is the most screwed up organization I have ever seen.   They are
at once myopic and misguided.   

    
    
    
    Okay, let's get this note in the correct place.
    
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
>    I didn't hear the proposal, but I seriously doubt big revenue
>    generators like the Big East basketball schools are affected.  Joe
>    mentioned that he assumed *most* of the schools affected would be ones
>    small enough that they can't support a Division I football program, but
>    the NCAA isn't going to toss out a cash cow like Georgetown.  
>    In any case, as it stands now the phrase "Division I participant" is 
>    meaningless.  What sport are we talking about?  Are the reductions
>    we're talking about only for basketball?  That wasn't clear to me...
    
    I don't know what sports they were talking about, but I just figured
    that it would be more likely to affect basketball than football because
    there are simply more division I basketball programs and therefore more
    smaller schools playing division I basketball.  I also seriously doubt
    it would affect big-time basketball schools such as Georgetown,
    Providence, St John's, etc.  All I really know is what I read from the
    AP story, which said one of the items on the table was "imposing
    tougher requirements for membership in Division I."  
    
    Joe
    
    Joe
    

    Three things:
    
    1) Don't kid yourselves, there's plenty of abuse in the so-called
       minor sports, especially track and field, hockey, baseball, and
       wrestling.  Even Lacrosse.
    
    2) A racial dimension will emerge in this debate if the rules are
       passed.  Look for "coach" John Stompshim (tm) to once again
       demonstrate his total lack of any capacity for embarrassment and
       once again personally veto a move by the NCAA.
    
    3) NOTHING should be linked to these so-called graduation rates.
       They should jack up standards for all students and then simply
       link $ & scholarships to ongoing performance.
    
    MrT

   
 >   1) Don't kid yourselves, there's plenty of abuse in the so-called
 >      minor sports, especially track and field, hockey, baseball, and
 >      wrestling.  Even Lacrosse.
 

I know all about these firsthand. back when I was playing div-1 soccer the 
coach basically told a bunch of us to decide to switch into phys-ed as a mjor 
or kiss the team good bye. Since I knew after college that a career in 
professional soccer was beyond my ability I chose to remain a student and
kiss the soccer team good bye and switch to intramurals.

Unfortunately I saw a couuple of friends decide to stick with the program and
all eventually flunked out. They were getting up at 4:00 am for a 2 hour indoor
session and then had practice again at 4:00PM for another 2 hours. Most of them
were either falling asleep in class or when they tried to study. This was during 
the off-season. The time commitments were much greater during the season.

I can't help but think that they might have made it through college if the
amount of time they were allowed to practice was somehow tied into their current
GPA's.

I think the NCAA is trying to curb these abuses but they should be tied into
each individuals current performance. They should not make broad sweeps of
the brush assuming that all student-atheletes are the same.

Metz

    What I'm trying to establish here is that there is no *formal* linkage
    between the Olympics, the NCAA, or any college in the country.
    
    Thus, Janet Evans' complaint that she'll have to drop out of Stanford
    to compete in Barcelona is completely irrelevant to this issue.  If she
    wants to compete in Barcelona, first she needs to swim a lot and do it
    faster than anyone else in this country.  Then she needs to win at the
    US Olympic Trials.   Then she can book flight for Spain.
    
    She doesn't *NEED* Stanford to do this.  She didn't need Stanford in
    1988 at Seoul when she won beaucoup hardware since she was in high
    school at that time.  So why now ???
    
    Having said that, I do recognize that Stanford may offer her superior
    training facilities, expert coaching, tough competition, and all that
    she needs to prepare herself.    But Stanford is *NOT* a rock hard
    pre-requisite for her trip to Spain.  Again, as she proved in 1988 when
    she went to Korea.
    
    And, before this goes off the deep end, I'm not anti-Janet Evans,
    anti-Stanford, anti-swimming, anti-Olympics, or any other "anti-"s you
    guys want to dream up for me.  I do, however, share your observation,
    Doug, that the NCAA is a completely mixed-up operation.   One
    interesting facet of this latest attempt at NCAA self-reform is that
    they have stated they want to clean themselves up before Congress does
    it for them.
    
    Now *THAT*, namely Congressional oversight over the NCAA, would be the
    ultimate in the "blind leading the blind".
    
    Bob Hunt

    Nils Hasselmo, Prez of the University of Minnesota (yeah, he's 
    a_immigrant from Sweden, appropriate, huh?), himself trying to 
    get his own Athletic Dept. under control, is heavily involved in
    pushing for the meat-axe approach.  Nils justifies this approach
    on the basis that it's either all or nothing, pointing out the fack
    that the NCAA and presidents have been calling for massive reforms
    for 20 years no and nothing has happened.  He sees the problem as
    so bad that it's a matter of forgoing the niceties and erring on
    the side of academics at the expense of athletics; an intentional
    but necessary error, if you will.
    
    MrT

    On the other hand, Bob, as I understand it the NCAA can say what Janet
    Evans does with her time as long as she's participating in an NCAA
    sport, just as they legislate against players holding jobs on their own
    time, etc.  Again, in a formal sense, Janet Evans is not asking 
    Stanford to get her to the Olympics, even if that's what it sounds 
    like.  She just wants to train, and my guess is that means a lot of 
    extra hours in that pool *by her own choice*.  
    
    The point is that Janet Evans wants to go to Stanford *and* swim in the
    Olympics.  As you say, she doesn't need Stanford to go to Barcelona and
    is free to pay her own way, but nor should she be prohibited from doing 
    both by the exact same argument for individual responsibility and 
    freedom.  But you can be sure that if NCAA has its way with some petty
    legislation, she better not get caught swimming in that pool for more
    than the prescribed number of hours, or you know what that means...
    
    glenn
     

 I read that the proposed reduction from 30 hours of athletic time allowed
 per week will be cut back to 20 hours but the swimmers will get an exception.
 Then it will pass.

 On the Big East schools dropping out no way. What the rule change is that
 you must have 7 Division 1 programs to stay in Division 1 for both sexes.
 Doesn't mean they need football they can have soccer, Lacrosse, Golf etc..

 mike

 � On the Big East schools dropping out no way. What the rule change is that
 � you must have 7 Division 1 programs to stay in Division 1 for both sexes.
 � Doesn't mean they need football they can have soccer, Lacrosse, Golf etc..
    
    I didn't say they would drop out.  Just that they'd have a hard time
    staying in *IF* the rule forced them to play Division 1-A football.
    
    I heard an even different interpretation of the rule last night ...
    that is, a school can stay in Division 1 men's basketball if and only
    if it spends a total of $500,000 a year on all *other* sports combined,
    men and women.
    
    Shouldn't be a problem for the Jesuit schools.  Most of them have top
    shelf track and field programs and they also play soccer and lacrosse.  
    Half a million can get chewed up pretty quickly.
    
    Bob Hunt

    Right, Villanova for example, is Division 1 in track and other sports.
    
    Some schools that would be affected would be ECAC hockey schools
    like Clarkson, St. Lawrence, and RPI, basketball schools like Siena,
    etc....

    
>    Some schools that would be affected would be ECAC hockey schools
>    like Clarkson, St. Lawrence, and RPI, basketball schools like Siena,
>    etc....

    Clarkson, St Lawrence, and RPI aren't division I in basketball,
    correct?  Does this mean that if a school wants to remain division I in
    a particular sport (not just basketball), it must spend at least
    $500,000 in all other sports?  I thought the rule was just applying to
    basketball.  They did mention on Sportscenter last night that schools
    like Georgetown are saved by the Big East, because that conference
    involves so many other sports.
    
    In addition to Siena, another school I heard mentioned that would be
    affected is LaSalle.
    
    Joe

Gee, I hope this doesn't affect any of the Wesleyans!

    I think the rule just applies to basketball.  Because of the big
    payoffs available from hoops, a lot of schools who really shouldn't be
    in Division 1 put almost all their athletic budget into basketball and
    hope for the big payoff.  This is designed to prevent the smaller
    schools from doing that.  It shouldn't affect hockey and probably won't
    affect any of the schools in the Big East.  It also shouldn't force
    these schools to add/upgrade football because that's not really the
    intent.
    
    John

    Among the notable changes made yesterday at the NCAA convention were
    cutting the number of football scholarships from 95 to 85, cutting
    basketball scholarships from 15 to 13, the reduction of coaching
    staffs, and requiring a division I basketball school to spend at least
    $500,000 on men's and women's sports other than football basketball.
    
    A few days ago some of the changes made were reducing the number of visits
    that schools are allowed to give to prospective recruits.
    
    Joe

   The academic standards of Proposition 48 appear to have had a 
positive effect on college athletes' graduation rates, a 
preliminary NCAA study shows. Findings: A 56.5% five-year 
graduation rate for athletes who entered school in 1986, when Prop 
48 started, compared to 48.1% for 1984 or 1985.