NCAA Legislation will Impact Initial Eligibility
The Atlanta Journal Constitution provides some interesting insight into the new initial eligibility requirements that were approved last month by the NCAA Board of Directors. According to research data put out by the NCAA, 43% of men's basketball players who initially enrolled in college for the 09/10 school year would not have met the recently approved initial eligibility standards. That same number for football was at 35% and when looking at all student-athlete's initially enrolling in 09/10 was just over 15%. While the new eligibility requirements do not bring back partial-qualifiers, students who meet the current eligibility requirements will still be allowed to receive aid and practice in their first year; the difference being that these students will automatically be eligible for four years of competition following their "academic redshirt".
Initial eligibility was not the only area addressed by the BOD, they also revised the APR standards and penalty structures. The new APR benchmark will be 930 over a four year period, an increase of five points from the previous benchmark score. The penalty structure will also be changing to reflect the renewed focus on academics.
The good news with all of this is that both the APR and the initial/transfer eligibility requirements will be phased in over the next several years. The APR benchmarks will be implemented over the next three year period, while the freshman eligibility requirements will go into effect for the Fall of 2015/16- which are this year's current HS freshman.
If you would like to get a more detailed description of all of these requirements, please plan to attend the Monthly Coaches Compliance Workshop, which will be tomorrow morning (Wednesday November 16th) at 10:30AM. The meeting will be held in the HLC Conference Room. We hope to see you there!
