Delegates Process New Format

Now that the old NCAA convention process--one school, one vote--has been replaced by a legislative flow chart that seems like an academic version of limbo. . . what does it mean for the student-athletes?

For one thing, the days of heated convention rhetoric meaning anything are gone. On the contentious issue of student-athlete part-time employment at last year’s convention, one delegate said, “Do you want to keep time cards for your student-athletes at McDonald’s?”

And minutes later, a vote was taken and the jobs proposition was passed.

Much of the credit was given to an articulate member of the student-athlete advisory committee, Bridget Niland, a law student at the University of Buffalo. Since a moratorium was placed on the proposition in August, Niland is trying to help push it through under the new process.

“The old structure was so much more friendly to the student-athlete,” she said. “I’m done with my eligibility, but I can’t even imagine being a current student-athlete, attending meetings and keeping up.

” . . . We have not yet defined our role, so it remains to be seen, but I can honestly say to this point, we have lost a lot of our voice. We don’t have that microphone at the convention floor anymore.”

NCAA executive director Cedric W. Dempsey disagreed with Niland.

“We’ve got 50 more student-athletes involved in the process, more than we’ve ever had before,” he said Sunday. “We’ve got student-athletes on the management council. They are much more involved in the formation of legislation. Before, they were reacting to legislation.”

Another member of the student-athlete advisory committee pointed out difficulties of the new structure.

“The new structure is not student-athlete friendly,” said Meredith Willard, a gymnast from the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa. “I’m sure there are benefits, but for us, it’s hard. All the legislation goes through these different tunnels and sometimes you don’t know exactly where it is.”

Iowa Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby said the new process would take a while to fall into place. “I think that will evolve,” he said. “Student-athlete advisory boards are getting more fully engaged in the legislative process.”

Said Dempsey: “They [the students] still have a voice. Part of it [the disagreement] is that we’re still new in this process. We never listened to student-athletes before. We had no student-athlete advisory committees.”

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Among other things, in his state of the NCAA speech Sunday night, Dempsey encouraged discussion on the appropriateness of the term “amateur.”

“More and more, our athletes are in the Olympic movement,” Dempsey said. “[We want] to try to stay in concert with their changes and our changes, so we’re not in a combative situation with the USOC.”