Directors of Division I of the NCAA voted Thursday to slow the planned implementation of the intercollegiate sports governing organization’s new academic eligibility rules, giving student-athletes who are academic underperformers additional time to comply with the rules while keeping the overall new thrust intact.
At their board meeting in Indianapolis, the group of college presidents gave high school students an additional year to prepare themselves academically to meet the higher eligibility standards for playing in intercollegiate athletics.
The Division I directors also voted to give what it calls “limited-resource institutions,” more time to improve their academic education programs to meet new NCAA academic performance criteria that bar schools from post-season competition if less than 50 percent of the school’s team members are not expected to graduate.
The twin decisions that impose a new two-tier compliance timetable for “limited-resource” institutions represent a partial victory for historically Black colleges and universities, a group of institutions that fall into the NCAA’s “limited resource” category.
“We have an obligation to work with HBCUs and limited-resource institutions to make sure their student-athletes have every opportunity to be successful academically,” says NCAA president Mark Emmert, in a statement released by the NCAA after the board vote. “It’s important to look at a variety of options and be as deliberative as we can to ensure our actions facilitate success, not limit it.”
The NCAA statement says the goal of its Academic Performance Program “is not to punish teams that don’t meet the benchmarks but to improve the academic outcomes for underperforming teams.”
The organization says the flexible transition period for limited-resource institutions “is consistent with this goal and provides opportunities for institutions with limited resources and a different mission.”
