Athletic department budgets that are growing three to four times as fast as overall university budgets and escalating coaches’ salaries have drawn the attention of NCAA officials and federal lawmakers, who are reviewing the current tax-exempt status of college athletics. Aides for the House Committee on Ways and Means are asking questions about potential tax…
Big East university presidents voted 13-3 in November to stop enrolling first-year athletes who do not meet the NCAA’s initial eligibility standards coming out of high school. There are no exceptions, which is a major change from Big East guidelines issued a year ago. The Big East became the fourth Bowl Championship Series league to…
Earlier football commitments College football coaching staffs are offering and accepting commitments from high school football prospects earlier and earlier in the recruiting process. “I worry about the early commitments,” Florida head coach Urban Meyer told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “But we are guilty as well. I worry about it with respect to their high…
Longer season impacts freshmen More Division I-A football freshmen will see increased playing time in the future simply because there will be more games. The college football schedule is set to grow to 12 games next season. Coaches’ apprehensions will grow along with it. “They are making it more difficult on football players every year,”…
George Washington University coaches will have to fill out reports on recruits who come from unaccredited high schools, according to a May 11 article in The Washington Post. GWU had several players who went to schools labeled as “diploma mills” in earlier reports in the Post and The New York Times.
The NCAA is telling Division I baseball teams to come up with a plan to improve academic performance or face a substantial cutback in games. As a group, Baseball’s graduation rates and Academic Progress scores are the third-worst, ahead of only football and men’s basketball, and the sport’s graduation rate is second-worst to men’s basketball…
Correspondence Courses Spell Concern A number of schools are currently under NCAA investigation for allowing student-athletes to use an inordinate amount of correspondence courses (courses by Internet or mail) in their course loads. According to a special report in the Salt Lake Tribune, Brigham Young University’s independent study program has been employed by coaches and…
While men’s collegiate sports programs are being trimmed for budgetary reasons – such as tennis at Colorado – women’s sports are added as universities keep pace with Title IX compliance. Athletic directors are looking to fulfill complicated compliance formulas, involving everything from scholarships and “proportionality” mirroring the male-female student enrollment ratio, at a minimum of…
Whether it’s a good idea would be debated vigorously if the proposal reaches the NCAA football rules committee, the first step in creating legislation. It has been kicked around for a while now; Big Ten Conference Commissioner Jim Delany said he first remembers hearing of it 20 years ago, and Gophers coach Glen Mason thinks…
Under NCAA rules, text messages to recruits are considered to be more like letters than phone calls. That is, coaches can send unlimited messages to high school seniors they are trying to recruit, and some messages to juniors. And they can respond to any message from a recruit at any time. According to an ESPN…