INDIANAPOLIS — NCAA leaders are ready to give college sports an overhaul.
They want to simplify the 439-page Division I rulebook, enforce stronger penalties for rule-breakers, increase academic standards and link academic performance to possible postseason bans. And if NCAA president Mark Emmert gets his way, all of this would be approved in the next 12 months.
Today’s board meeting represents the first test to see if that will happen.
A new cut line for the Academic Progress Rate, the calculation used to evaluate whether each team at a school is making sufficient progress toward graduation, was already on the docket. The current cut line is 925. Emmert wants it increased to 930 immediately and perhaps higher in future years. Failure to meet the cut line, Emmert said Wednesday, should result in postseason bans in all sports.
“It’s very realistic and it will happen very quickly, meaning this year,” Emmert said.
Emmert said he also embraces stronger academic standards for incoming freshmen and junior college transfers.
The NCAA also is planning a major rewrite of its complicated rulebook to shed regulations that many in the meetings agreed were unenforceable or nitpicky. The infractions committee could bring back the postseason bans and television bans that became the norm in the 1980s.
On Tuesday, the presidents discussed the possibility of providing scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance at a school, instead of just room, board, tuition and fees, and multiyear scholarships instead of the one-year scholarships now used in college sports.
The Associated Press
