College Presidents Make Changes That Wake Up Everyone

Executive Director Dick Schultz began the 84th annual convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Sunday by calling for a “new model” for college sports that would include such radical--at least by current standards--elements as tenure for coaches and the elimination of athletic dormitories.

But in a news conference at the end of the convention, he conceded that his views probably will remain on the back burner at next year’s convention in Nashville, Tenn., as the NCAA deals with the reports of committees on cost-reduction and restructuring of the organization.

“Other areas of reform, especially the ones I mentioned, are on down the line,” Schultz said. “But thinking has been stimulated, and maybe things will move at a faster pace.”

The meeting that ended Wednesday was “a very successful convention” in Schultz’s eyes because it produced specific changes in policy rather than rhetoric.

The convention produced measures that will shorten the basketball season and spring football practice, modify--but leave basically intact--the Proposition 42 entrance requirements and provide for a stronger drug-testing policy.

In addition, the convention will be remembered as a time when the Presidents Commission regained some of the clout it seemed to have lost when its cost-containment measures were voted down in 1987. All legislation proposed by the commission at this year’s convention was approved, and the presidents successfully pushed through the measures to lessen demands on athletes’ time in the face of heated opposition.

“What happened obviously provides momentum for reform,” Schultz said. “Some people were not totally happy (with some of the legislation), but there’s time for adjustment.”

Indeed, many athletic directors left grumbling that the reduced time demands on basketball players, as a result of playing three fewer games, will be negligible, and the revenue lost from those games will be considerable. Donna Lopiano, director of women’s athletics at the University of Texas, at one point told the convention that the presidents had become too wrapped up in specifics, thereby sounding a theme for other dissenters.

Schultz said: “I would hope the atmosphere has been established where the presidents can establish policy and leave it to the athletic directors and faculty reps to institute that policy. I don’t think the presidents want to be involved with the nitty-gritty. I feel they get involved when progress is too slow, and I think that was the case here.”