The Division I Council declined to reconsider a proposal it defeated in April that would have added an additional countable assistant coach in baseball and softball.
The Southeastern Conference, which sponsored the original proposal, asked for a reconsideration at the October meeting.
Generally, rules require reconsiderations to occur within the same meeting a proposal is adopted. However, procedural issues with the Council's April vote led to the request to reconsider in October. The request originally came to the Council's leadership group, which decided the entire Council should have the opportunity to weigh in.
Because the proposal was defeated, the matter cannot be legislated for two years, per the Division I legislative process that prohibits defeated legislation from being brought forward again for two years.
Independent medical reporting line recommendation
The Council also recommended that the Division I Board of Directors adopt legislation to require schools outside the autonomy conferences to adopt the independent medical reporting line rules that the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences adopted in January 2016. The legislation would require medical personnel working with student-athletes to have a reporting line outside the athletics department. All nonautonomy conferences previously had indicated they were opting into this legislation, but this approach codifies this legislation for all 32 conferences.
Earlier this year, the board voted to require schools outside the autonomy conferences to provide mental health resources and education for student-athletes, which the autonomy conferences adopted in January 2019.
Championships financial review
The Council heard about the Division I Board of Directors Finance Committee launch of a working group to review legislation and policy governing the allocation and prioritization of Division I championships resources. This review will consider the finite financial resources and inflationary pressures and the desire to continue to enhance the championships and the student-athlete experience. The group will review championships budgets, relevant bylaws and policies to determine priority level and intersection with other Division I initiatives. The group plans to complete its work within the next six to 14 months.
Legislative introductions
The Council introduced a series of legislative proposals:
- A proposal that would clarify academic misconduct rules, as recommended by the Board of Directors and Presidential Forum.
- Legislation that would change academic requirements for student-athletes who transfer and compete after graduation.
- A proposal that would increase the number of members of the Infractions Appeals Committee from five to seven.
- Legislation that would expand the ability of student-athletes to accept merit-based scholarships without the aid counting against the team limit on athletics scholarships. The proposal, created by the Division I Student-Athlete Experience Committee, combines several elements of proposals from the 2018-19 legislative cycle that were referred to the committee and acts on wide membership support for academic and need-based exemptions while stopping short of exempting all institutional awards unrelated to athletics.
- A measure that would alter the baseball recruiting timeline to more closely align with the college decision-making process of the general student body. To give more time for study, baseball was removed from a proposal last year that set up a new recruiting model for many Division I sports.