Baseball Legislation Changes

[Greenie]

Wellman outlined the proposals, which passed Thursday and are effective Aug. 1, 2008:

•Players must be academically certified for the fall term in order to play the next spring. This will encourage players to take more courses during the season and in summer school.

•Players must now have a year in residence if they transfer from one school to another. (Players must now sit out a year if transfering from one DI school to another)

•Teams will continue to offer a maximum of 11.7 scholarships per roster, but each player will now receive a minimum of the equivalent of 33% of a grant-in- aid. The maximum number of players who can be on scholarship will be 27. Currently there is no limit. The proposal also caps the regular-season squad size at 35.

•Playing schedules for teams that fall below an APR score of 900 will be reduced by 10%. Teams currently can play 56 games, which would thus be reduced to 50. The NCAA says a score of 925 equates to about a 60% graduation rate.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/baseball/2007-04-26-ncaa-academics-baseball_N.htm

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/newsdetail?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/NCAA/NCAA+News/NCAA+News+Online/2007/Division+I/Fall-term+certification+proposed+for+baseball+-+03-12-07+NCAA+News

[bisonpride2k]

Wellman outlined the proposals, which passed Thursday and are effective Aug. 1, 2008:

•Players must be academically certified for the fall term in order to play the next spring. This will encourage players to take more courses during the season and in summer school.

•Players must now have a year in residence if they transfer from one school to another. (Players must now sit out a year if transfering from one DI school to another)

•Teams will continue to offer a maximum of 11.7 scholarships per roster, but each player will now receive a minimum of the equivalent of 33% of a grant-in- aid. The maximum number of players who can be on scholarship will be 27. Currently there is no limit. The proposal also caps the regular-season squad size at 35.

•Playing schedules for teams that fall below an APR score of 900 will be reduced by 10%. Teams currently can play 56 games, which would thus be reduced to 50. The NCAA says a score of 925 equates to about a 60% graduation rate.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/baseball/2007-04-26-ncaa-academics-baseball_N.htm

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/newsdetail?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/NCAA/NCAA+News/NCAA+News+Online/2007/Division+I/Fall-term+certification+proposed+for+baseball+-+03-12-07+NCAA+News

Those are some harsh changes for NDSU. Basically that means only 15 players of the 35 will be able to receive scholarships with NDSU's current funding and EVERYONE else will have to be strictly walkons. No more Chris Baso and Jeremiah Piepkorn steals for $200 just to get them on campus.

As far as the APR, everyone is in trouble with that one because of the high turnover rate of players leaving early for the draft. Also now factor in walk ons that will receive a $500 scholy from a DII that will transfer out and that hurts your APR as well.

Not good news for NDSU baseball.

[tony]

It'd be nice if there was some good news for NDSU baseball (like moving the season back).

The academic stuff I can understand, but what is the rationale behind putting a minimum on the size of scholarships?

[tony]

According to the Argus Leader blog (Terry V, formerly Terry V of the Fargo Forum), there is considerable opposition from member schools over the 33% scholarship rule. Maybe this means it'll never get enacted.

[sambini]

Thanks Greenie for the insight and information.

[bisonpride2k]

The only schools it would not effect would be the major conference schools that are fully funded. So there would be over half of the programs that do not fit into the fully funded category so they definately do not want an influx of walk on players or the possibility of lossing players to DII programs simply because they cant offer a small scholarship to get them into the program.

[Greenie]

Board holds the line on text messaging, amends baseball legislation
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLN4g3NPUESYGYxqb6kW hCjhgihqYeCDFfj_zcVH1v_QD9gtzQ0IhyR0UAE3AuRw!!/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvUUd3QndNQSEvNElVRS82XzBfMTVL?WCM_GLOBAL_CO NTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/NCAA/NCAA+News/NCAA+News+Online/2007/Association-Updates/Board+holds+the+line+on+text+messaging+amends+base ball+legislation+08-09-07+update

The baseball legislation originally required individual financial aid packages for baseball student-athletes to include at least 33 percent athletics aid. The Board decided to lower the percentage of required aid to individual players to 25 percent and to allow all countable aid to be included in the calculation toward the minimum, not just athletics aid.

The Board kept the provisions in the original proposal which retained the financial aid model of 11.7 equivalencies in the sport and limits counters to 30 in 2008-09 and 27 in 2009-10 and thereafter and caps the regular-season squad size at 35.

The Board also directed the Baseball Academic Enhancement Working Group to continue studying and working on other issues within the sport, including the possibility of using a dollar figure minimum for financial aid packages as an option, especially for private institutions which often have a higher cost of attendance than public institutions.

The modified legislation enters another 60-day override period, during which institutions may submit requests to overturn the legislation to the national office. The legislation is not effective until August 1, 2008.

[bisonpride2k]

So basically where we are at right now we can have 24 players all on a 1/4th scholarship or 6 on half rides and 12 on 1/4th. Either way it means lots of walk ons having to play vital roles. Uness you have 8 scholarships at a minimum its going to be pretty tough to win at all.

[Greenie]

For what it's worth...the Summit Plan mandated that NDSU add any combination of 2 scholarships to its choice of baseball and men's track/field. As mentioned previously, baseball was at 6 last year. Not sure about men's track and field.