A Call to Action: Appendix B: Action on Knight Commission Recommendations of March 1991

A Call to Action: Reconnecting College Sports and Higher Education

Download a PDF of A Call To Action

• A Call to Action: Letter of transmittal
• A Call to Action: Foreword
• A Call to Action: Ten Years Later
• A Call to Action: A Call to Action
• A Call to Action: Appendix A: Additional Issues for Consideration
• A Call to Action: Appendix B: Action on Knight Commission Recommendations of March 1991
• A Call to Action: Appendix C: Meeting Participants
• A Call to Action: Appendix D: Acknowledgments
• A Call to Action: Appendix E: Statement of Principles

Appendix B: Action on Knight Commission Recommendations of March 1991

Presidential Control

Trustees should explicitly endorse and reaffirm presidential authority in all matters of athletics governance, including control of financial and personnel matters. Trustees should annually review the athletics program and work with the president to define the faculty's role in athletics.

Implementation of this recommendation requires action on individual campuses. Following the release of the Commission's first report, more than 100 institutions and organizations reported adoption of these principles. Additionally, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) has worked to educate trustees about their appropriate role in intercollegiate athletics through articles and white papers in its periodicals and publications, and via speakers and meetings focused on this topic.

Presidents should act on their obligation to control conferences.

Based on testimony before the Commission during 2000-2001, presidents do not in practice control at least a handful of Division I-A conferences. At the national level, the 1992 NCAA convention amended the NCAA Constitution to require presidential approval of conference-sponsored legislative initiatives.

Presidents should control the NCAA.

In 1997 the NCAA restructured, giving presidents full authority for the governance of intercollegiate athletics at the national level. The Association's top body, the Executive Committee, is comprised entirely of CEOs, and the NCAA's three divisions are led by presidential groups.

Presidents should commit their institutions to equity in all aspects of intercollegiate athletics.

Opportunities for women to compete for NCAA member institutions in NCAA championship sports increased 57 percent between 1991 and 2000. Despite this tremendous progress, during the 1998- 1999 academic year (the most recent year for which data are available), 41 percent of these varsity athletes were women even though women comprise 52 percent of the undergraduates at NCAA member institutions. Women at the Division I level in 1999-2000 - where they represent 53 percent of the student body - received 43 percent of athletic scholarship dollars and 32 percent of overall athletics budgets. Overall, 48 percent of all participants in NCAA-sponsored championships in 2000-2001 were women and 52 percent were men.

Presidents should control their institutions' involvement with commercial television.

Presidents have been actively involved with contract negotiations with CBS, which broadcasts the Division I men's basketball tournament, and with ESPN. Their involvement, however, has not led to institutional control over the commercial aspects of televised sports. Further, testimony before the Commission during 2000-2001 indicated that presidents are not actively involved in negotiations for televising the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) postseason football bowl games.

Academic Integrity

The NCAA should strengthen initial eligibility requirements:

The number of required units of high school academic work for initial eligibility should be raised from 11 to 15.

The 1992 NCAA convention raised the Divisions I and II core curriculum requirements from 11 to 13 units, effective in 1995.

High school students should be ineligible for reimbursed campus visits (or signing a letter of intent) until they show reasonable promise of being able to meet degree requirements.

Between 1991 and 1997 the NCAA adopted seven proposals related to proof of a prospect's academic credentials required before an official (expense paid) visit. Criteria included minimum required test scores and core academic courses completed. In 1997, however, in response to concerns expressed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the NCAA eliminated specific academic criteria and instead requires only that the prospect submit a test score and academic transcript prior to an official visit.

Junior college transfers who did not meet NCAA initial eligibility requirements upon graduation from high school should sit out a year of competition after transfer.

This recommendation has not been adopted by the NCAA. In 1996, however, the NCAA adopted higher minimum percentage of degree requirements for all junior college transfers in Division I football and men's basketball. These athletes must have completed 35 percent - versus 25 percent - of their degree requirements to be immediately eligible in their third year of collegiate enrollment (see below).

The NCAA should study the feasibility of requiring that the range of academic abilities of incoming athletes approximates the range of abilities of the entire freshmen class.

In its first five-year cycle, the NCAA certification program gathered data related to this recommendation by requiring that institutions compare the academic profiles of all incoming athletes with the rest of the incoming class as a whole. The next certification cycle improves upon this assessment by requiring that comparisons be made on a sport-by-sport basis, as well as by gender and racial subgroups. Significant differences in academic profiles must be noted and explained.

The letter of intent should serve the student as well as the athletics department.

Since 1991, no changes have been made in the national letter of intent program. However, athletes are permitted to appeal the terms and conditions of the letter of intent. Approximately 20,000 such documents are signed each year by prospects planning to attend NCAA Division I and II institutions. During the 1999-2000 academic year - a typical year - 170 letters of intent were appealed: 86 percent of the appeals were approved, 12 percent of the athletes were granted a partial release, and 2 percent of the appeals were denied. These data indicate flexibility in the administration of the national letter of intent program.

Athletics scholarships should be offered for a five-year period.

No action to date.

Athletics eligibility should depend upon progress toward a degree.

The 1992 NCAA convention adopted new Division I requirements stipulating minimum percentages of credits earned toward a specific degree, as well as a minimum grade point average toward that degree, for athletes' third and fourth years of eligibility, effective in 1996. Further, the permissible number of credits earned during the summer to maintain eligibility was capped, and the new satisfactory progress toward degree requirements were made applicable to midyear transfer students after a semester rather than a year on campus.

Graduation rates of athletes should be a criterion for NCAA certification.

NCAA certification incorporates graduation rates as a criterion. In the program's first five-year cycle, however, graduation rates of all athletes were compared with the student body as a whole. The next certification cycle improves upon this assessment by requiring that comparisons be made on a sport-by-sport basis, as well as by gender and racial subgroups. Significant differences in graduation rates must be noted and explained.

Financial Integrity

All funds raised and spent in connection with intercollegiate athletics programs will be channeled through the institution's general treasury. The athletics department budget will be developed and monitored in accordance with general budgeting procedures on campus.

Implementation of this recommendation requires action on individual campuses. Data concerning its adoption are unavailable. The NCAA certification program, however, addresses these issues specifically in the first operating principle under the Financial Integrity section of the program's self-study document, which each Division I institution must address in detail.

Athletics costs must be reduced.

Some efforts to reduce costs have been made, such as reducing the number of allowable scholarships in certain sports and limiting assistant coaches' salaries in men's basketball. In the latter instance, however, the salary caps were successfully challenged as a violation of antitrust law; the NCAA settlement with the coaches cost over $50 million. At the institutional level, athletics costs rose steadily during the 1990s, such that the NCAA's latest financial study reports that roughly just 15 percent of Divisions I and II institutions operate in the black. From 1997 to 1999, deficits at Division I-A institutions where expenses exceeded revenues increased 18 percent.

Athletics grants-in-aid should cover the full cost of attendance for the very needy.

No action to date, although the NCAA's Special Assistance Fund available to needy athletes has increased from $3 million in 1991 to $10 million in 1998, and is scheduled to increase to $10.4 million in 2002. Additionally, in 2002 the NCAA will institute a new $17 million Student Opportunity Fund, which can be broadly used for anything that benefits athletes but not, specifically, on salaries or facilities. Each fund is scheduled to increase annually throughout the duration of the NCAA's 11-year CBS contract.

The independence of athletics foundations and booster clubs must be curbed.

Implementation of this recommendation requires action on individual campuses. Data concerning changes in the numbers of independent athletics foundations and booster clubs are unavailable.

The NCAA formula for sharing television revenues from the Division I men's basketball tournament must be reviewed by university presidents.

The NCAA Executive Committee and the Division I Board of Directors, both composed entirely of presidents, have been actively involved in review of the formula for distribution of revenues from the new $6.2 billion CBS contract. The formula was approved in early 2001 by the NCAA Executive Committee.

All athletics-related coaches' income should be reviewed and approved by the university.

The 1992 NCAA convention adopted legislation requiring annual, prior written approval from the president for all athletically related income from sources outside the institution. That legislation, however, was eliminated in 2000 as part of an NCAA deregulation effort.

Coaches should be offered long-term contracts.

Implementation of this recommendation requires action on individual campuses. While it appears that more long-term contracts are being offered to big-time football and men's basketball coaches, the pressure to win has not diminished.

Institutional support should be available for intercollegiate athletics.

Progress in this regard has been minimal. The NCAA Division I Philosophy Statement, for example, still contains language recommending that its members strive "to finance [their] athletics programs insofar as possible from revenues generated by the program itself." Moreover, several states have laws prohibiting the use of state funds on intercollegiate athletics programs. In Division I-A, institutional support, direct government funding, and student activity fees have increased as a percentage of total revenues from 14 percent in 1993 to 16 percent in 1997.

Certification

The NCAA should adopt a certification program for all institutions granting athletics aid that would independently authenticate the integrity of each institution's athletics program.

Division I institutions must undergo NCAA certification of their athletics departments. When the program was first adopted, institutions were meant to be certified once every five years; since then, the cycle has been extended to once every 10 years. Division II institutions, which also award athletics aid, have not adopted the certification program.

Universities should undertake comprehensive, annual policy audits of their athletics programs.

The Division I certification program requires an annual compilation of athletics policy audits and other data.

The certification program should include the major themes advanced by the Knight Commission, i.e., the "one-plus-three" model.

The NCAA certification program substantially incorporates the fundamental principles of the "one-plus-three" model. The four major components of athletics certification are: governance and commitment to rules compliance; academic integrity; fiscal integrity; and equity, welfare and sportsmanship.

Addendum In addition to actions taken related specifically to the Knight Commission's recommendations, the NCAA has also done the following since the release of the Commission's first report in 1991:

• Limited costs by reducing the list of printed and video recruiting materials that institutions and conferences are permitted to send to prospective athletes.
• Restricted the use of correspondence courses for establishing full-time enrollment and meeting satisfactory progress requirements.
• Required prospective athletes who graduate from a two-year college to earn at least 25 percent of their credit hours from the two-year institution awarding the degree.
• Limited the use of transferable degree credit hours that partial or nonqualifiers can earn during the summer preceding their transfer from a two- to a four-year college.
• Allowed basketball players to receive athletics financial aid to attend summer school prior to their first term of full-time enrollment.
• Adopted principles promoting gender equity, student-athlete welfare, and sportsmanship and ethical conduct.
• Allowed athletes to earn money from jobs during the academic year.
• Strengthened the rules governing Division I men's and women's basketball midyear transfers, who will not be immediately eligible the academic year they transfer, regardless of their academic qualifications, beginning with the 2001-2002 academic year.