A few weeks ago, I wrote about P5 conferences’ proposals to assist the “student” in every “student- athlete.” Common-sense measures like eight hours of uninterrupted time overnight and not considering travel days as “days off” have been proposed, although not turned into action yet.
The good news this week is that the Mid-American Conference (MAC) has adopted four time-obligation proposals submitted by the conference’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Although not a P5 conference, this move is substantial for helping student-athletes fulfill the first half of the title by which we refer to them.
The measures that will be implemented in 2017, as reported by mac-sports.com, consist of the following:
1. Establish a two-week time off period from required athletics activity following the end of a championship season segment.
2. Require student-athletes that are out-of-season to have a week off with no athletics obligations at the beginning of each semester.
3. Prohibit athletics obligations between away-from-home travel and practice for at least eight hours following the return to campus.
4. Require practice schedules be shared with student-athletes weekly and followed by coaching staffs, and, if changes are required, they must be known by student-athletes 24 hours prior to the scheduled practice time.
Reading through this new legislation recalls the tension expressed before between satisfaction that these rules are now in place and consternation that they are only being enacted in 2016. However, I want to look at the MAC’s progressiveness as a positive and not focus on the draconian system that required such self-evident policies to be made explicit in the first place.
That is, until a story like this one, about Charleston Southern football players being suspended for buying school supplies in addition to books with their book stipends, crops-up this past week and sours the MAC announcement a bit by reminding us the NCAA still has a ways to go in terms of having common-sense legislation.
I am not claiming that Charleston Southern did anything wrong in suspending the 30+ student-athletes, nor am I advocating for the Charleston Southern football players have their suspensions rescinded. The players, knowingly or unknowingly, broke NCAA rules by buying school supplies and not just “books.”
Instead, I simply think juxtaposing the two stories against one-another is enlightening about the state of college athletics today. By listening to student-athletes and taking their suggestions seriously, as the MAC did with its new initiatives proposed by its Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, actual progress was made in the athletics-versus-academics conflict. However, as reminded by the suspensions at Charleston Southern, more work must be done to ensure policies benefit the constituency of the NCAA and don’t make being a student, complete with pencils and notebooks, beholden to being an athlete.
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