(12-28-2011 09:23 PM)Bucfaithful Wrote: ESPN article on the push by the NCAA and University presidents for multi-year scholarships (versus yearly renewable scholarships):
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/...rship-plan
This is another part of a very slippery slope for the NCAA and college athletics. Most of the items that came from that Summit were to give the appearance of the President's taking charge of Athletics. Some, actually ALL, of the things to come out of the meeting were mandates that were developed to save-face in the light of all the scandals that have gone on in the past couple of years. When the "Academics" on campus get tired of the messes that Athletics can make if not checked, these kinds of things happen. This is how we ended up with the first wave of "Academic Reform" and the APR's that most people don't understand.
People who want to believe in the "true" spirit of what college athletics is about: providing access to a scholarship and the experience of being a college athlete will support the multi-year scholarship (Drake Group, Knight Commission, etc) BUT the coaching side hates the idea of having to do a better job of recruiting a student and then having to RETAIN him/her. Coaches want to cut a kid at any time they please, particularily if there's a better player that you want.
It has NOTHING to do with coaches wanting to get rid of problem students, those student's who violate the scholarship agreement (ineligibility, violating Codes of Conduct, failing multiple drug tests) can lose the scholarship even under a multi-year agreement. It might actually entail a coach keeping a paper trail and actually providing due process for a student's scholarship revocation. It's not that hard to do.
The major consideration that most people don't want to talk about is the impact on the APR of a program when there's a coach that gets to cut a scholarship student without a real effort to show cause. Having lived through an APR nightmare, I can say with a fair amount of certainity that if coaches were forced to "dance with the one you took to the dance," and not allowed so much flexibility in terms of scholarship renewals, the APR issues would be minimized at most schools. Along with having the money to do the work needed and enough hands to do the work, APR problems come very quickly and in a most damaging manner when coaches decide they don't want a kid around anymore. The "techniques" they use to get rid of a kid can slap them in the face when the APR is tallied at the end of the year. Most coaches don't worry about what they are doing to an APR because they don't plan to be around.
As was discussed in the article, most coaches aren't around for five years, that's really no excuse to lure a student in with the promises and inducements to attended "State U" and then a new coach comes in and decides to eliminate the previous promises. It's an insitutional committment, not just the promises of a coach.
When we allow student athletes to transfer laterally and otherwise without restriction, then I'll support the one-year scholarship concept. Until then, I'm going with my colleagues and faculty friends on the need for multi-year scholarships (and I'll throw in an automatic freshman redshirt and five years of eligiblity for good measure).
