MEMORANDUM
TO: NCAA Executive Committee.
FROM: Bernard W. Franklin
Senior Vice-President for Governance and Membership.
SUBJECT: Legislative Changes Relating to Penalty
Structure and
Student-Athlete Well-Being.
In response to the directive of NCAA President Myles Brand and the NCAA Executive Committee to create a more responsive, less bureaucratic NCAA, a new secondary infractions reporting process has been developed by the NCAA enforcement services staff. This new reporting process will divide secondary violations into two classes: Level I secondary violations and Level II secondary violations. Level I secondary violations will continue to be reported to the NCAA national office as they are discovered, and will continue to be processed by the enforcement services staff. Level II secondary violations will be processed by NCAA institutions and/or their conferences and will be reported to the enforcement services staff on an annual basis. No formal processing of Level II violations will take place by the enforcement services staff.
This new reporting process has been developed in response to concerns that institutions, conferences and staff were spending too much time and energy reporting and processing secondary violations, particularly minor and/or technical violations that, in the overall scheme of things, just were not very significant. In an effort to address this concern and streamline even further the secondary infractions process, the enforcement services staff came up with a plan that would reduce the number of secondary infractions processed by the enforcement services staff by as much as 65 percent.
In addition, as part of the new process, it is necessary to reduce the number of violations that affect the eligibility of prospective and enrolled student-athletes. Specifically, Level II secondary violations should not affect the eligibility of any prospective or enrolled student-athletes. Accordingly, some of the identified Level II violations that currently impact eligibility need to be legislatively changed to de minimis or restitution violations. The legislative proposals reflect these necessary changes (Attachment A). Please note that each divisional Management Council and NCAA Division I Board of Directors/NCAA Division II Presidents Councils will have an opportunity to review these legislative recommendations at their upcoming meetings. Action taken by those bodies will be reported out during our Executive Committee meeting.
Finally, please note that we have
developed other legislative recommendations relating to creating a more
responsive, less bureaucratic culture as well as recommendations that focus on
student-athlete well-being. An executive
summary of the initial set of recommendations is provided in Attachment B.
We recommend the Executive Committee direct each division to consider
making these legislative changes either through noncontroversial legislation or
through the regular legislative process.
Other recommendations will be provided at a later date.
BWF:als
Attachments
cc: Selected NCAA Staff Members