SEC's Mike Slive's Proposed NCAA Changes

• krambman

  

  In this address at SEC Media Day today SEC Commissioner Mike Slive proposed the following changes.
  
  1. Redefine scholarships and benefits to cover actual full cost of attendance (an increase of about $3000 per year per student-athlete). Also, make scholarships multi-year awards instead of single year contracts.
  
  2. Strengthen academic requirements and raise the minimum GPA in core courses from 2.0 to 2.5.
  
  3. Modernize recruiting by allowing texting, Facebook, and Twitter.
  
  4. Improve NCAA enforcement by adding a category for "intentional rule violations" and possibly getting rid of the "primary" and "secondary" violations terms because they are unclear.
  
  
  I think that pretty much all of these are good ideas and will fix many of the problems within college athletics. He said that it's time to "hit the reset button" and basically called for an overhaul and modernization on how the NCAA operates.
  
  I'm shocked that these ideas are coming from the SEC, however, since it would be SEC coaches who would have the most work to do to modify how they currently operate to meet these new requirements.
• Pick6

  

  1. how do scholarships & benefits not cover the full cost of attendance?
  3. I could see this causing problems. Doesnt the NCAA have a time where you can and cannot talk to recruits?
• j_crazy

  

  i like them all.
• Hb31187

  

  It sounds like a good idea all around IMO
• bradmaynard

  

  Pick6;835629 wrote:1. how do scholarships & benefits not cover the full cost of attendance?

  
  I assume he's talking about food, laundry, school supplies, and healthcare costs the university don't cover. So basically free beer money.
• vball10set

  2. Strengthen academic requirements and raise the minimum GPA in core courses from 2.0 to 2.5.

  This alone makes over half the players in the SEC ineligible--how will they field enough teams to compete?
• Pick6

  

  bradmaynard;835686 wrote:I assume he's talking about food, laundry, school supplies, and healthcare costs the university don't cover. So basically free beer money.

  
  haha. well im pretty sure food, laundry, and healthcare are covered. Not sure about school supplies, but these guys already get a monthly stipend which is more than enough to live on, imo
• lhslep134

  

  Pick6;835827 wrote:haha. well im pretty sure food, laundry, and healthcare are covered. Not sure about school supplies, but these guys already get a monthly stipend which is more than enough to live on, imo

  
  In all fairness, we know they get a great stipend at the big schools. At the smaller schools (MAC, WAC, etc.) I'm not really sure.
• ohiobucks1

  

  I absolutely agree with all of this. I think student athletes should also be given apartments and rental cars to use too
• krambman

  

  Pick6;835827 wrote:haha. well im pretty sure food, laundry, and healthcare are covered. Not sure about school supplies, but these guys already get a monthly stipend which is more than enough to live on, imo

  
  They get enough to live on during the school year. I don't believe they get that money in the off season, which is extremely short for them and doesn't give them much more than a month to get a job and make money. They still have expenses in the off season. There have also been several independent studies done that shows that scholarships fall short of covering actual student-athlete expenses by about $3000 a month.
• OSH

  

  The NCAA needs a reform.
  
  This is a small step.
  
  I believe they should align more of their rules with the NAIA's -- read: hardly any!
  
  In regards to his proposals:
  1. Make athletes live on campus. Everything will be solved then. They don't have to worry about apartments, houses, etc. There is on campus housing for a reason. A school I was at had it based on scholarship money received, you get X amount then you have to live on campus. Other institutions I have been to require everyone to live on campus (small schools makes it easier to do that). A "full-ride" that football and basketball players get gives them tuition, books, room and board...what else do they need?! Oh yeah, and any injuries that happen are footed by the institution in fixing. Pretty simple to fix there, in my opinion.
  
  2. I don't see the academic standards changing one bit.
  
  3. I do believe they should use some social media. It's real easy to equate email with facebooking and twittering. So, why is email allowed and facebook not? Why is email allowed and twitter not? It's free. It doesn't cost the school or student-athlete or recruit a dime. Texting, on the other hand, would be hard. I understand that MANY kids today have texting enabled. But not all do. How do you ensure that texting doesn't cost the recruit money? If they have strict texting plans, they cannot have their bill be increased by coaches, student-athletes, girls, etc. texting them. This is one reason why it was banned in the first place.
  
  I honestly think that #4 is a sort of joke. Much like the whole "NCAA probation" is. I mean, c'mon, you break a rule...you get probation to that basically says, "You break another rule then we will punish you." Why not punish for the rule that is broken in the first place? I understand there are some things that are done, but make it a little more strict discipline and there may be fewer "probationary" opportunities.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  I especially like making the scholarship more than a one-year agreement. Doing so, will effectively end the SEC's oversigning tactics and bring the league back to the same level as everyone else. I'm sure Saban and Miles will be sending death vibes to him because of this.
• Pick6

  

  krambman;835872 wrote:They get enough to live on during the school year. I don't believe they get that money in the off season, which is extremely short for them and doesn't give them much more than a month to get a job and make money. They still have expenses in the off season. There have also been several independent studies done that shows that scholarships fall short of covering actual student-athlete expenses by about $3000 a month.

  
  $3000 a month?????? I'd like to see a breakdown of this.
• Azubuike24

  

  To me it's a P.R. move. It's a good one, but many of these ideas are unrealistic.
  
  1. The scholarship thing is something that has NEVER been a problem before. The problem is that people are taking the spirit of why it was set up this way and abusing it. Instead of overhauling the entire set up, just amend what you can and can't do as far as abusing the rules as they are written now. Hence, ban oversigning, make the language on how scholarships are offered, agreed upon and enforced more clear to the public, the coaches, the student-athletes, etc...after all, it's a contract of adhesion, like an insurance policy. The customer (or student-athlete) agrees to the terms at the beginning, signs it and they are bound by it. Just because a year later their "student-athlete" can't hack it on the football field doesn't mean the school should say "oh well, we like you and your family, lets keep paying your tuition 3 more years."
  
  2. As for the minimum GPA, while it's a great idea in principle, if the NCAA were to adopt that rule, all it would do is create an atmosphere of more shadiness surrounding athletes getting eligible. If the main professional leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA) continue to limit eligibility to play for pay in their leagues, athletes with skills will still need a place to go out of high school. If they can't make the grades, they will simply go elsewhere (like Europe for basketball players) and it will make the NCAA sport less quality and competitive. That benefits nobody. It's going to also lead to more cases of high schools allowing more exceptions as far as their curriculum and going out of their way to assist struggling athletes to make the grades.
  
  3. As for the Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc...this stuff is long overdue. As much as the NCAA has pushed back to keep this language out of their official statute book, it's time to ammend it for inclusion. This stuff is part of today's society. The very people who are making up the population of these schools are mostly all directly connected to these social media devices. All of these schools already link their curriculum, classes, teachers and even provide their own school-related social media for students, faculty and alumni to stay connected. It's time the NCAA joins with the times and addresses it.
  
  4. This makes way too much sense. Asking the NCAA to more clearly define their rules so everyone can understand them? Add to that, clarify some of their past decisions and current cases so we have some sort of anticipation on how things may be handled in the future? That would be WAY too much to ask. In-fact, much of the reason the NCAA has so much power and influence is because they haven't done this. They make it very difficult to present an argument based on precedent because they rarely define their decisions with clear evidence and even if they do, you don't have much in the way of concrete language to present a counter-argument. They always leave subjectiveness there to leave themselves an out in almost any scenario.
• Sykotyk

  

  Pick6;835922 wrote:$3000 a month?????? I'd like to see a breakdown of this.

  
  Pick6, I have to believe that was meant to say '$3000 a year'.
• krambman

  

  Sykotyk;835948 wrote:Pick6, I have to believe that was meant to say '$3000 a year'.

  
  Yes, should have said a year. Typo on my part.
• karen lotz

  

  krambman;835872 wrote:They get enough to live on during the school year. I don't believe they get that money in the off season, which is extremely short for them and doesn't give them much more than a month to get a job and make money. They still have expenses in the off season. There have also been several independent studies done that shows that scholarships fall short of covering actual student-athlete expenses by about $3000 a month.

  
  
  I'm pretty sure that if students take classes in the summer, they get paid for it, up to 18 credit hours.
• Pick6

  

  karen lotz;836232 wrote:I'm pretty sure that if students take classes in the summer, they get paid for it, up to 18 credit hours.

  
  this is what I was thinking as well. College players I know of at Akron take college classes and every buckeye player I follow on twitter seems to take them as well. That is their own fault if they decide to pass up on free living expenses, imo.
• Azubuike24

  

  In today's era, especially football or basketball, you would be crazy to NOT take summer classes. You receive access to the facilities.