Liberty University dropped a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association this month, one day after an N.C.A.A. committee clarified its new rules against unsportsmanlike conduct to insure that they do not forbid prayer on the football field.
The university, football coach Sam Rutigliano, and four players sued the N.C.A.A. two days before Liberty’s opening game. They said new rules barring players from celebrating excessively, which took effect this fall, would restrict their constitutional right to religious expression through prayer.
The N.C.A.A.'s football-rules committee designed the new rules to cut down on fights caused by the rise in taunting and in-your-face celebrations by players. Under the regulations, any “prolonged or excessive act” that draws attention to the individual -- including dancing and raising the arms -- draws a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. A second offense is grounds for ejection.
In a press conference on the day Liberty filed its suit, the chairman of the N.C.A.A. panel, Vincent J. Dooley, said kneeling in prayer would not be allowed because it would draw attention to an individual. If kneeling in prayer was permitted, he said, players might claim any form of celebration as a form of religious expression.
But the N.C.A.A. reversed itself the next day, prompting Liberty, which was founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, to drop its suit. The football-rules panel’s clarification said players could “kneel momentarily at the conclusion of the play, if in the judgment of the official the act is spontaneous and not in the nature of a pose.”
Four Liberty players knelt in the end zone after scoring touchdowns in Liberty’s 76-6 victory over West Virginia Institute of Technology.
