NCAA Rules Changes
The NCAA has approved some rather radical changes to its rules.
First, the NCAA has allowed schools the ability to add $2,000 to a scholarship. This would help prevent student-athletes from having a shortfall between the cost of attending a school and what the school is allowed to pride.
The Confidential believes that this rule is long overdue. For the most part, student-athletes are not allowed to earn income. That’s a pretty unfortunate Catch-22… money needed, but no ability to earn money. While some student-athletes have parents that can make up the gap, many other student-athletes do not. Moreover, $40/week is hardly going to lead to craziness. I think this is a great move. Granted, this will not stop boosters from abusing the system. But I have to figure that having a little spending money has to have some positive impact on temptation. We’ll give the NCAA an A.
Also, it is noted that the NCAA hopes that this rule will be adopted on a conference-by-conference basis. The Mac could vote to make it $500. The Sun Belt could opt against it. It is certainly expect that the wealthier conferences will not hesitate to take advantage of this. This will likely lead to a further gap between the AQ schools and the non-AQ schools. But conferring this benefit on student-athletes, which will remedy a present unfairness, is worth that risk.
Second, individual schools can choose to award multiyear scholarships, which may not be revoked based on performance. The Confidential is less sure about this one. For one, who decides what “revoked based on performance” means? If a kid with an attitude problem does not perform well, he could rather easily be dismissed from the team for “improper conduct.” That same conduct with a star could be ignored. I tend to think this will lead to litigation.
That being said, the absence of multiyear scholarships is absurd. A student-athlete is punished for transferring. However, a university can revoke a scholarship at will. And that usually occurs to allow a better player to have the scholarship. That is patently unfair. It sends the wrong message. Also, I think this rule will also work against the AQ schools in recruiting. If a Houston can offer a student a 4-year scholarship, but Texas Tech will only offer a 1-year scholarship, this may offset any differences regarding stipends. This is a benefit to the true student-athletes. All in all, it is hard to quibble with the rule change. We’ll give the NCAA a B+.
Third, there will now be a rule that schools that fail to meet the Academic Progress Rate benchmark will be ineligible for playoffs, tournaments, and bowl games. The devil is in the details. The 4-year phase in is helpful. There is going to be some pain here. The Confidential needs to see how this gets implemented before giving it anything more than a C. The fear is that this will punish schools whose players leave through no fault of the school. On the other hand, it does emphasize recruiting players who are going to at least do the minimum as students.
Fourth, incoming freshmen will now need a 2.3 GPA, rather than 2.0 GPA. The Confidential gives this a D. The difference between 2.3 and 2.0 is meaningless. Grades vary. Integrity in grading varies. The Confidential would rather see the schools create programs to bring the student-athletes with subpar academics UP to par, rather than just exclude them.
Finally, there were some rule changes regarding basketball recruiting activity periods and types of contact. Again, while attempting to correct problems with recruiting, it remains to be seen whether this will just lead to new problems. This deserves an incomplete.
In sum, The Confidential gives the NCAA rules an aggregate grade point average of 2.58. Not exactly demonstrating a good example…
The Confidential 
I would like to see the NCAA adopt unrevokable scholarships across the board. If an athlete decides to enter the draft early, the school cannot simply reload that position with a new scholarship, unless the athlete has graduated (and therefore would not need the schollie anymore). Same thing goes if the student flunks out, or is kicked out.
In this case, recruiting the best talent may bring short-term success, but could have long-term consequences for the best teams.
Perhaps you could make a case that the scholarships are offered by the coaching staff, so if a coach is fired/quits, then the next in line may not be saddled with a large number of scholarships that are tied-up by players that are no longer there.
Well, that’s a bit much. The “problem” was schools essentially cutting players to allow a better player to have the scholarship. That should be prohibited. If you recruit a player, you are stuck with the player for 4 years.
It’s a bit different when you start talking about someone revoking their own scholarship. That’s a scholarship that could be given to someone else. While it might hurt the school to prevent that scholarship from being given out, it would hurt a prospective student-athlete even more. It’s easy to say that the recruit could find another school… but that all trickles down. The kid that was headed to Kentucky goes to Louisville, so a Louisville recruit turns to Cincy, a Cincy recruit turns to Toledo.. and eventually someone who has absolutely no chance of making the NBA and would be the consummate student-athlete loses out on a scholarship at Albany or Stony Brook.