Leaders of the five most powerful athletics conferences, responding to players’ concerns that they spend too much time on their sports, are weighing ideas to limit the hours athletes are required to devote to their teams.
One idea calls for a ban on practices and other mandatory athletics activities, not including competition, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Another proposal would create a three-week break at the end of the traditional playing season, allowing athletes to take time off.
The questions about time demands are expected to take center stage at next week’s NCAA convention, where student leaders hope to play a key role in shaping new rules.
Elite college athletes say they spend 40 or more hours a week on sports, with little downtime between seasons. Some players say the emphasis on sports is too great, limiting their opportunities to enroll in stringent majors, study abroad, or gain internship experience. Other students — particularly those who think they might play professional sports someday — want to dedicate even more time to athletics.
The increased demands on players’ time have come as more money has poured into big-time college sports. New conference alignments have led to increased travel for students in many programs. The ever-rising value of television contracts, which have brought in most of the new revenue in major conferences, has come with academic trade-offs, such as more midweek games.
And heightened expectations to win have made many coaches reluctant to give their teams much time off. Combined, those changes have left players with less time to be serious students.
The questions about time demands are expected to take center stage at next week’s National Collegiate Athletic Association convention, where student leaders hope to play a key role in shaping new rules.
The proposed changes, which are set for a vote next Friday, are seen as a starting point in a broader discussion about giving players more opportunities to be regular students. Former athletics officials say those discussions have been prompted by lawsuits seeking more benefits for players.
In recent months, NCAA leaders have called for more scrutiny of how athletic departments monitor demands on students and how many hours of sports are appropriate. NCAA rules limit teams to 20 hours a week of organized practice and competition. But many players, coaches, and compliance staffers agree that those limits are regularly exceeded.
Athletics officials are expected to discuss the 20-hour mandate at the convention next week and whether it has outlived its usefulness. Some leaders believe that colleges should do away with weekly limits, leaving coaches to decide how much is enough.
Critics say the increasing demands on athletes’ time are part of a larger set of concerns about the conditions under which they participate and the lack of control they have over their schedules.
“You have a culture in which coaches view hard work as the way to keep their jobs,” says Richard M. Southall, an associate professor of sport and entertainment at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, who has pushed for more rights for players. “The idea that presidents are going to legislate changes into this culture is naïve.”
Growing Student Influence
As students see it, they have more voice than ever in the debate. Last year, as part of an overhaul of the NCAA’s governance structure, athletes gained a seat on the Division I Board of Directors and a place on other influential committees. Their presence at last year’s NCAA convention helped influence votes.
Leaders of the association’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee conducted a survey last summer of thousands of Division I athletes that included questions about the hours they spend on their sports and how much downtime they wanted.
The group plans to release findings from the survey next week. Those results will inform the leaders of the five major conferences — the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and Southeastern — about whether new rules should be adopted.
One key question is whether colleges should continue to regulate the hours that athletes are allowed to spend under a coach’s supervision.
Many programs have found ways to skirt those limits. For example, some coaches require players to watch game film on their own time rather than with members of their staff, which would count against the 20-hour limit.
Teams also organize voluntary “captains’ workouts,” allowing players to practice outside of the 20 hours, as long as no coaches are present. (Players have a name for such practices, which are essentially mandatory: “moptional.”)
NCAA rules require teams to take one day off a week during the traditional playing season. But in the hypercompetitive world of college sports, days off aren’t always what they seem. Many teams travel on their “off” days, taking advantage of an NCAA policy that doesn’t count travel to and from games as part of the 20-hour restriction.
The Big Ten Conference has proposed changing that rule, preventing programs from counting travel days as their required day off.
“We feel like, if you’re doing anything that day, it should be countable,” says Jim Phillips, athletic director at Northwestern University, who leads the NCAA’s Division I Council.
Rethinking Mandates
Greg Sankey, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, believes that players should get one day off a week during the season, but he is not sure about other regulations of athletes’ time.
“After the season’s done, how much time do you get or should you get that’s yours? There’s a healthy difference of opinion,” he says. “There’s a feeling among some athletes that maybe we need more time, but we don’t want to lose our ability to work out.”
He would like to see the NCAA rethink the idea of “countable” athletic activities. The association has a detailed breakdown of what is supposed to count toward the 20-hour limit — including coach-initiated meetings and practices, which are limited to four hours per day — and what isn’t — including meetings with coaches initiated by students, pregame treatment and meals, and promotional activities.
Mr. Sankey is also not in favor of a 20-hour mandate.
“We need to move away from this weekly number and talk about what happens in a given day,” he says.
Different sports, he believes, might need different approaches. “The strongest feedback we’ve gotten is from swimmers who have said, Who are you to limit the time I spend in the pool?” Mr. Sankey says. “On the other side are football players who say, Hey I need that day off.”
Jack Swarbrick, athletic director at the University of Notre Dame, says the proposed rules do not go far enough to grapple with the deeper issues with students’ athletic commitments.
“If you’re really concerned that student-athletes have enough time, you ought to focus on scheduling and traveling,” he says. “Nothing is more disruptive than that.”
He thinks, for example, that colleges should have multiple teams travel together and compete on the same day, which would justify the cost of chartered flights. More coordinated scheduling would eliminate the daylong excursions his teams sometimes make when traveling commercially.
As an example, Mr. Swarbrick cites the length of time it takes to travel from his campus, in South Bend, Ind., to Blacksburg, Va., to compete against Virginia Tech, an ACC rival. “From the time we leave campus until the time we arrive,” he says, “it’s a two-hour bus ride to Midway or O’Hare [airports], you have to be there an hour early, then you have one connection at least. It’s 10 to 12 hours of travel, at least, each way.”
Some athletics programs have found other ways of limiting players’ time away from their campuses. The Ivy League schedules many of its games on Friday and Saturday nights, limiting midweek competition. The league also allows players 49 days off per year beyond the NCAA-mandated time off.
Harvard University gives its coaches the choice of which days to take, after consulting with their teams, says Bob Scalise, the university’s athletic director.
“It helps students plan job interviews, do group projects — whatever you want, we will protect that time for you,” he says. “It’s nice because students have some predictability. They don’t have a situation where they’ve lost a game, and the coach can say, You were supposed to have off next Tuesday, but now you don’t.”
Mr. Scalise, who leads an NCAA committee focused on improving the experience of student-athletes, says the Ivy League’s policies have given his students a chance to explore more of what college has to offer.
“We want to give student-athletes the opportunity and time to experience more of college life than they may even think they want to experience while they’re here,” he says.
Kendall Spencer, a former long jumper at the University of New Mexico and chair of the NCAA’s Division I athlete-advisory committee, says that many students would like to get involved in more activities outside of sports, including research to help prepare them for graduate school.
Coaches, he says, play an integral part in making sure that those opportunities are possible.
“The value of the student-athlete stretches far beyond what they do on the playing field, and coaches have to see that,” he says. “We need to create an environment where athletes are comfortable pursuing these opportunities. They have to believe they’re more than just an athlete.”
Brad Wolverton is a senior writer who covers college sports. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @bradwolverton, or email him at brad.wolverton@chronicle.com
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