Ncaa Convention

Presidents want stiffer admissions and ongoing eligibility standards, but the Big East Conference wants to make it easier for freshmen to play right away.In the name of fiscal sanity, some smaller Division I members want to play non-scholarship football, a concept generally opposed by larger Division I institutions. In a related issue, the football powers in Division I-A want smaller, private colleges to spend more scholarship money on sports other than basketball.Battle lines are being redrawn for what should be another heated NCAA Convention.

Morgan State University athletic director Leonard Braxton said last night that black athletes would be "knocked backward" toward the junior college level by yesterday's vote by NCAA schools for the toughest academic standards in the history of collegiate sports.Braxton said: "If we can't give financial assistance to Division I black athletes, they will have to go to junior colleges. The cost of going to Syracuse is $22,000 a year, and there's no way a lot of black athletes can afford it. It's all set up now where they [predominantly white schools]

I have this nervous twitch. When I hear the loud voices at the NCAA throwing around the word "reform," I grab my back pocket to make sure my wallet is still there. I just can't escape the feeling that I'm somehow being fleeced.Traditionally, see, the NCAA's idea of getting tough is to, oh, make it illegal for coaches to hand out embossed pencils. To say they avoid the main problems is not unlike saying the Orioles have a savings account. A bit of an understatement.The NCAA convention in Nashville last week was not much of a departure.

Understanding that the summer heat and the Terminator and four months of watching the AL East standings may have numbed your senses, I begin today with a warning. Sit down. Now. I have a truly shocking piece of news.There may be real movement on the matter of cleaning up college sports.No joke.I know, I know, it's a stunner. The NCAA has never been much of a self-cleaning operation. Tell them to clean up their act and they say, sure, we'll limit the number of pencils a coach can hand out and tell assistants they can only phone recruits 26 times a week.

A reform package that will be one of the major topics of discussion at the NCAA convention next week would call for many schools to spend more if they want to remain in Division I.Loyola College and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference would like to up the ante in another area: academics. At its core, MAAC-sponsored Proposal 66 would require Division I members to graduate 50 percent of their student-athletes who receive athletically related financial aid.When the 85th annual NCAA convention is held in Nashville, Tenn.

No one wants to pull the plug on the Baltimore Beltway Classic, but no one seems willing to take measures necessary to keep it alive, either.The fourth Beltway Classic -- and apparently the last in this format -- will be held this weekend at UMBC. On Friday, Loyola and Mount St. Mary's meet at 6 p.m., and two-time champion Towson State plays UMBC at 8. On Saturday, the consolation game is at 6, the championship at 8.UMBC is the last of the four to be host to the tournament, and athletic directors from the participating schools have yet to make a final decision on its future.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Dick Schultz hit all the familiar issues, including those for which there seem to be no workable solutions.The National Collegiate Athletic Association executive director proposed a national coaches' meeting to find ways to curb recruiting excesses.He announced that a special committee would be formed soon to look at the methods used to investigate and punish schools that violate NCAA rules.He waved the flag for an array of cost-saving rules proposals that will be voted on here this week.

The losing streak is 12 games and his best player's health has been a question mark for a month, so don't ask UMBC basketball coach Earl Hawkins how things are going.UMBC takes a 1-13 record into tonight's East Coast Conference home game against Hofstra. The Retrievers defeated Howard on a last-second shot by Derrick Reid Nov. 27 but haven't won since.Reid has missed the last six games with a possible circulatory problem that doctors and trainers haven't been able to diagnose lTC with any degree of certainty.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The 85th annual NCAA convention might be remembered as the year educators took control of intercollegiate athletics.The NCAA Presidents Commission, responding in part to the perception that big-time college sports have gotten too powerful and are rife with abuses, backed a series of reforms that passed with few exceptions."

WASHINGTON -- If Rep. Tom McMillen, D-Md., has his way, the reform of college athletics will start with the NCAA.McMillen yesterday unveiled the "Collegiate Athletic Reform Act" designed to restore the balance between athletics and academics at colleges and universities across the country. The bill takes aim at what McMillen considers the core of the problem -- the escalating role of big-time money in the big-time college sports, football and men's basketball.The new legislation would restore to the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption for football and basketball, a privilege that was taken away by the Supreme Court in 1984, for a period of five years, giving the NCAA the power to negotiate all television contracts.

NCAA president Brand has pancreatic cancer colleges NCAA president Myles Brand said yesterday that he has pancreatic cancer and his long-term prognosis is "not good." Brand, 66, has led the governing body of college sports since 2003. He disclosed his condition in a written statement to colleagues on the final day of the NCAA convention in Oxon Hill, which he was unable to attend. He said he learned of the diagnosis "very recently." "I have pancreatic cancer," the statement said. "The long-term prognosis is not good.

Morgan State University athletic director Leonard Braxton said last night that black athletes would be "knocked backward" toward the junior college level by yesterday's vote by NCAA schools for the toughest academic standards in the history of collegiate sports.Braxton said: "If we can't give financial assistance to Division I black athletes, they will have to go to junior colleges. The cost of going to Syracuse is $22,000 a year, and there's no way a lot of black athletes can afford it. It's all set up now where they [predominantly white schools]

Presidents want stiffer admissions and ongoing eligibility standards, but the Big East Conference wants to make it easier for freshmen to play right away.In the name of fiscal sanity, some smaller Division I members want to play non-scholarship football, a concept generally opposed by larger Division I institutions. In a related issue, the football powers in Division I-A want smaller, private colleges to spend more scholarship money on sports other than basketball.Battle lines are being redrawn for what should be another heated NCAA Convention.

No one wants to pull the plug on the Baltimore Beltway Classic, but no one seems willing to take measures necessary to keep it alive, either.The fourth Beltway Classic -- and apparently the last in this format -- will be held this weekend at UMBC. On Friday, Loyola and Mount St. Mary's meet at 6 p.m., and two-time champion Towson State plays UMBC at 8. On Saturday, the consolation game is at 6, the championship at 8.UMBC is the last of the four to be host to the tournament, and athletic directors from the participating schools have yet to make a final decision on its future.

The possibility of non-scholarship football at Towson State exists even if the NCAA doesn't create that option for Division I members at its next convention.The 1990 NCAA convention included legislation that prohibited Division I and II schools from playing Division III football after 1992. A proposal at next January's convention in Anaheim would create a Division I-AAA, a level that would mandate need-based financial aid only, no spring practice and limited coaching staffs.Towson State is one of the 266 schools in the Eastern College Athletic Conference, and some of its members aren't waiting for the NCAA to create I-AAA.

WASHINGTON -- If Rep. Tom McMillen, D-Md., has his way, the reform of college athletics will start with the NCAA.McMillen yesterday unveiled the "Collegiate Athletic Reform Act" designed to restore the balance between athletics and academics at colleges and universities across the country. The bill takes aim at what McMillen considers the core of the problem -- the escalating role of big-time money in the big-time college sports, football and men's basketball.The new legislation would restore to the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption for football and basketball, a privilege that was taken away by the Supreme Court in 1984, for a period of five years, giving the NCAA the power to negotiate all television contracts.

Understanding that the summer heat and the Terminator and four months of watching the AL East standings may have numbed your senses, I begin today with a warning. Sit down. Now. I have a truly shocking piece of news.There may be real movement on the matter of cleaning up college sports.No joke.I know, I know, it's a stunner. The NCAA has never been much of a self-cleaning operation. Tell them to clean up their act and they say, sure, we'll limit the number of pencils a coach can hand out and tell assistants they can only phone recruits 26 times a week.

The losing streak is 12 games and his best player's health has been a question mark for a month, so don't ask UMBC basketball coach Earl Hawkins how things are going.UMBC takes a 1-13 record into tonight's East Coast Conference home game against Hofstra. The Retrievers defeated Howard on a last-second shot by Derrick Reid Nov. 27 but haven't won since.Reid has missed the last six games with a possible circulatory problem that doctors and trainers haven't been able to diagnose lTC with any degree of certainty.

I have this nervous twitch. When I hear the loud voices at the NCAA throwing around the word "reform," I grab my back pocket to make sure my wallet is still there. I just can't escape the feeling that I'm somehow being fleeced.Traditionally, see, the NCAA's idea of getting tough is to, oh, make it illegal for coaches to hand out embossed pencils. To say they avoid the main problems is not unlike saying the Orioles have a savings account. A bit of an understatement.The NCAA convention in Nashville last week was not much of a departure.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The 85th annual NCAA convention might be remembered as the year educators took control of intercollegiate athletics.The NCAA Presidents Commission, responding in part to the perception that big-time college sports have gotten too powerful and are rife with abuses, backed a series of reforms that passed with few exceptions."