Stipends for student-athletes. Travel expenses for players’ families to attend games. Maybe another assistant football coach.
Those are just three of the ways SEC coaches and administrators have suggested money might be spent if the five wealthiest conferences receive autonomy to set some of their own rules within the NCAA.
The issue of autonomy has come up countless times this week in the conference rooms and corridors of the Hilton Sandestin, site of the SEC’s annual spring meetings. SEC commissioner Mike Slive called the issue “the cornerstone of our discussions.”
That’s because of an expected August vote by the NCAA Division I board of directors on whether to allow the 65 SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 schools to govern themselves separately from the other 286 Division I schools on certain matters, including rules regarding player benefits.
Slive said he’s optimistic the NCAA board will accept the autonomy plan. If so, the five leagues collectively would delve into a batch of possible changes, starting with stipends to put some spending money in their athletes’ pockets.
Although details are in flux about the extent of autonomy — and doubts remain about how easily the five leagues could come to consensus on some matters — expectations are high at the SEC meetings about possible outcomes.
“If that group of five has autonomy, if that group has the ability to make decisions based on what is best for these institutions and these student-athletes, then I think just about anything is possible,” Georgia football coach Mark Richt said. “That’s kind of how we all are seeing it, as a chance to really benefit our student-athletes in a way we haven’t been able to do in the past.”
The push for autonomy grew out of the five conferences’ frustrations about the difficulty and sometimes impossibility of getting their agendas passed through the larger NCAA governance structure. By many accounts, the impetus for change was the failure to get approval for $2,000-per-year stipends for athletes, first proposed in 2011 but never enacted because smaller schools with lesser resources outnumbered larger schools with massive resources.
The restructuring effort also comes as several federal lawsuits by current and former athletes and a unionization effort at Northwestern threaten college sports’ business model, a model that has been kind to the power conferences but is getting unprecedented pushback from players.
“We’re hopeful that in the near future with the restructuring process our student-athlete football players will have a little bit better lifestyle,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said.
The autonomy plan defines certain areas in which the five leagues could collectively chart their own course. These include rules regarding financial aid, other benefits, transfers, insurance, coaching personnel, and time demands on athletes.
Autonomy regarding financial aid would allow the leagues’ schools to pay stipends to athletes up to the difference between the value of a scholarship and the full cost of attendance, likely several thousand dollars per year. Control over other benefits could allow the schools to pay for athletes’ families to travel to games and/or major events, such as the Final Four or College Football Playoff.
Autonomy regarding personnel means the leagues could revise rules on the size of coaching staffs, or set rules limiting support staffs. SEC head football coaches this week voted to recommend that they be allowed 10 full-time assistant coaches, up from the current nine. That’s a measure previously shot down at the NCAA level by smaller schools.
Not all issues will be easily bridged, even among just the five leagues.
“There are going to be folks who want bigger staffs; there are going to be folks who want smaller staffs,” Slive said. “Even though we have a lot of things in common, we have things that aren’t in common. Our legislative process is going to have to develop to the point where we can deal with that and make decisions.”
Some coaches have noted that the power leagues must consider unintended consequences in making changes.
“I think it’s unique in basketball in that we want to protect the NCAA tournament,” Georgia men’s basketball coach Mark Fox said. “We want to have autonomy to do certain things and take care of the student-athletes as we’re capable, but protect the tournament.
“If there’s a restructuring … you would see changes that you would give smaller schools the opportunity to also do. For instance, if we went to full cost of attendance, you would give a Butler the right to also offer that if they want to.”
Autonomy for the five leagues would carry the stipulation that any changes they make also could be adopted by other Division I schools or leagues — if they can afford them.
But Richt said the new structure could alleviate frustrations that lucrative programs feel when current rules prevent them from doing common-sense things they have the resources to easily manage.
“I understand why it is the way it is, the fact that one size doesn’t fit all,” Richt said. “But it’s frustrating because we want to do more for our student-athletes.
“We take care of them (now) in a very first-class manner in any way we can within the rules. The frustration comes when the rules don’t allow a little bit more for them. I think everybody is very optimistic that if these five (conferences) get together and have that autonomy, things will change for the better. And, I think, pretty rapidly.”
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