It is nearly essential in the current day and age for NCAA institutions to have full-time compliance officers on staff, especially at the NCAA Division I and II levels where athletic scholarships are allowed. Compliance has become such an important issue that many of the larger NCAA Division I schools have hired lawyers to serve as compliance directors to help intercollegiate athletic programs stay within the rules and regulations of the NCAA.
In the article, Compliance Officers’ Guide to Navigating NCAA Student-Athlete Reinstatement Cases Involving Amateurism Violations, authors David Pierce, Anastasios Kaburakis and Lawrence Felding explore a three-year period (2004-06) by studying every student-athlete reinstatement case submitted to the NCAA to search for trends, leniencies and damning circumstances for athletes who have forfeited their amateur statuses.
This article is an excellent resource for compliance officers, athletic directors, coaches and athletes alike to be informed on how to respond when these types of violations occur. The NCAA has a student-athlete reinstatement (SAR) staff and determined that the staff reviewed 430 cases in the three-year period. During that time 42.3 percent of the student-athletes were re-instated, 51.9 percent of the students were re-instated with conditions (meaning accompanied with fines and contest suspensions) and only 5.8 percent of the students were declared ineligible.
The study showed six different bylaws that all 430 cases fell under including receipt of payment, professional teams, agents, employment, promotional activities and financial donations. The two most common bylaws violated were promotional activities (180) and receipt of payment (143).
From there, the article describes each of the six bylaws that were violated and gives specific examples of each violation. Then the authors explain how mitigating factors helped ruled in decisions for reinstatement, determined the penalties and sometimes reduced those penalties on appeal.
The section on mitigating factors is especially helpful because it spells out every mitigating factor in the 43 cases where they were considered to reduced penalties. Mitigating factors included actions of the athlete, athlete knowledge, unique personal circumstances, actions of the institution, nature of the benefit received, related NCAA legislation, and confusion within sporting community. Once again the article goes on to spell out several of the individual cases and explains why penalties were reduced or upheld.
Before concluding, the article explores the cases where student athletes were permanently ruled ineligible. Out of the 23 cases resulting in permanent ineligibility they “typically stemmed from violations involving agents, signing a professional contract, competing with or against professionals, or a combination thereof.” (p. 102)
Once again, the concluding remarks are incredibly helpful to anyone involved with compliance. The article gives recommendations for compliance personnel and athletes to act upon when put in these situations. These suggestions are perfect for compliance coordinators who need to educate athletic directors, coaching staffs, boosters and athletes. The directions for compliance personnel include: documentation, due diligence, legislative services database for the Internet (LSDBi) research, education programs and trust the student-athlete first philosophy. For the athletes guidelines include: seek advice, act immediately and pursue retaining amateur status.
This article is highly recommended for athletics administrative staffs who want to be in compliance with the NCAA, and for those who know that infractions (both intentional and unintentional) will occur and want to know how to act in order to receive more favorable sanctions from the NCAA.
-- by Kyle Robarts
--------------
Pierce, D., Kaburakis, A., & Fielding, L. (2008). Compliance Officers' Guide to Navigating NCAA Student-Athlete Reinstatement Cases Involving Amateurism Violations. Journal of Issues In Intercollegiate Athletics, 1(1), 87-106.
Link to full article
Showing posts with label NCAA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NCAA. Show all posts
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Influences of independent entities on Associations Rules: A response to "Reform and Renewal in College Sports"
Reform and Renewal in College Sports is not necessarily your typical article on sports and legal issues where a decision is decided in a court or a university has to follow a certain standard passed down by legal authorities. However, this article by Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. and Dr. Judith Albino, is a good example of Association Rules. In the case of this article, the association in which many universities seek recognition and approval from for intercollegiate athletics in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA).
The article, however, is actually a transcribed speech between the two contributors who represent independent entities that suggest standards and rules that are adopted to the NCAA’s bylaws and regulations for member institutions. The topics at hand is the reform of intercollegiate athletics and returning athletic programs back within the umbrella of the overall goals of higher education institutions.
Hesburgh, the former president of the University of Notre Dame, co-chaired the Knight Commission at the time of publication. The Commission was an extension of the Knight Foundation and was comprised of university presidents, university administrators, athletics administrators, members of the sports media and senior businessmen and women. The goal of the Knight Commission was and is to implement reformation in intercollegiate athletics and to help prevent the commercialization and corruption of big-time college sports that keeps programs from adhering to the original academic missions of postsecondary institutions.
Hesburgh spells out many of the issues in collegiate sports that the Knight Commission has tackled and boasts the commission’s efforts that have been adopted by the NCAA. Those efforts included formal adoption policies by the NCAA for requirements for satisfactory progress toward the degree, new academic requirements for entering student-athletes including SAT results of 700 and high school GPA’s of 2.0 ore more, and reduction of athletic grants-in-aid among other
In the Knight Commission’s original publications calling for reform, the commission laid much of the responsibility for reform in college athletics on the university presidents. As a result, under the umbrella of the NCAA, the NCAA Presidents’ Commission though formed before the Knight Commission, began to take more serious action.
Albino, the chair of the presidents’ commission at the time of publication, reported that the commission tackled issues of time-demands on student-athletes, academic requirements for initial and continuing athletics eligibility, presidential authority and control, and gender equity. All of the commission’s efforts were documented at the end of the article with policies adapted by the NCAA thanks to the commission’s recommendations for reform.
Legally, the Knight Commission and the NCAA Presidents’ Commission have no direct authority over institutions and its respective governance over athletic programs. However, the NCAA with its listening ear to these two commissions and with direct authority over membership institutions, were able to implement policies and standards to establish reform.
The contributors, Hesburgh and Albino, do a solid job of explaining the successes as well as explaining that the fight is not over in collegiate athletics and reform. The Knight Commission followed up with reports for their proposed reformations and documented them in publications released in 1991 and 2001 documenting the improvements and laying out the challenges for the future. This article pertains to any institution, public or private, and is recommended for any university administrator and athletics administrators concerned about intercollegiate athletics’ place in the overall missions of higher education.
- Kyle Robarts
----------
Hesburgh, T., & Albino, J. (1995). Reform and Renewal in College Sports. Journal of College and University Law, 22(1), 63-76.
Link to article via ERIC
The article, however, is actually a transcribed speech between the two contributors who represent independent entities that suggest standards and rules that are adopted to the NCAA’s bylaws and regulations for member institutions. The topics at hand is the reform of intercollegiate athletics and returning athletic programs back within the umbrella of the overall goals of higher education institutions.
Hesburgh, the former president of the University of Notre Dame, co-chaired the Knight Commission at the time of publication. The Commission was an extension of the Knight Foundation and was comprised of university presidents, university administrators, athletics administrators, members of the sports media and senior businessmen and women. The goal of the Knight Commission was and is to implement reformation in intercollegiate athletics and to help prevent the commercialization and corruption of big-time college sports that keeps programs from adhering to the original academic missions of postsecondary institutions.
Hesburgh spells out many of the issues in collegiate sports that the Knight Commission has tackled and boasts the commission’s efforts that have been adopted by the NCAA. Those efforts included formal adoption policies by the NCAA for requirements for satisfactory progress toward the degree, new academic requirements for entering student-athletes including SAT results of 700 and high school GPA’s of 2.0 ore more, and reduction of athletic grants-in-aid among other
In the Knight Commission’s original publications calling for reform, the commission laid much of the responsibility for reform in college athletics on the university presidents. As a result, under the umbrella of the NCAA, the NCAA Presidents’ Commission though formed before the Knight Commission, began to take more serious action.
Albino, the chair of the presidents’ commission at the time of publication, reported that the commission tackled issues of time-demands on student-athletes, academic requirements for initial and continuing athletics eligibility, presidential authority and control, and gender equity. All of the commission’s efforts were documented at the end of the article with policies adapted by the NCAA thanks to the commission’s recommendations for reform.
Legally, the Knight Commission and the NCAA Presidents’ Commission have no direct authority over institutions and its respective governance over athletic programs. However, the NCAA with its listening ear to these two commissions and with direct authority over membership institutions, were able to implement policies and standards to establish reform.
The contributors, Hesburgh and Albino, do a solid job of explaining the successes as well as explaining that the fight is not over in collegiate athletics and reform. The Knight Commission followed up with reports for their proposed reformations and documented them in publications released in 1991 and 2001 documenting the improvements and laying out the challenges for the future. This article pertains to any institution, public or private, and is recommended for any university administrator and athletics administrators concerned about intercollegiate athletics’ place in the overall missions of higher education.
- Kyle Robarts
----------
Hesburgh, T., & Albino, J. (1995). Reform and Renewal in College Sports. Journal of College and University Law, 22(1), 63-76.
Link to article via ERIC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
