Significant NCAA Rule Changes Proposed

A 10-man ad hoc committee that includes the top administrators of some of college sports’ major powers is expected to ask the NCAA Presidents Commission next week to propose rules changes that would substantially alter big-time college sports.

UCLA Chancellor Charles Young, chairman of the ad hoc committee, said Monday his group’s comprehensive reform package would:

--Push back the start of the basketball season by a month and likely reduce the number of games allowed.

--Eliminate spring football practice.

--Reduce over a three-year period the total number of scholarships from 95 to 80 in football and from 15 to 12 in basketball.

--Reduce the number of full-time assistant coaches from nine to seven in football and from two to one in basketball.

--Eliminate baseball’s fall season and reduce the maximum number of games from 80 to 60.

--Effectively eliminate high school all-star games for graduating seniors and summer basketball camps and leagues for rising seniors by ruling ineligible anyone who participates in those activities.

The committee also will ask the Presidents Commission to support an NCAA Council proposal to cut the off-campus recruiting period in half in both football and basketball, reduce the number of contacts a school can make with a prospect and eliminate boosters from recruiting. Currently, boosters are barred from off-campus recruiting but may participate on campus.

While these cost-cutting measures are being considered, the ad hoc committee will ask the Presidents Commission “to strongly support in every possible way holding the line” against efforts to water down or eliminate Proposition 48, the NCAA’s new standard for first-year eligibility, according to LSU Chancellor James Wharton, a committee member.