New NCAA Rule?

[Mo]

Today I heard there is a new rule from the NCAA that a college can only send a fencer to ONE NAC or World Cup meet.
Is there any truth to this?
It was supposed to have just been decided....
The Momster

[Phaeton]

There's no way this can be true. It's probably the most illogical, stupid idea I've heard in a long, long time.

if it is indeed true, the people who thought it up should be round up and shot.

[Mo]

There's no way this can be true. It's probably the most illogical, stupid idea I've heard in a long, long time.

if it is indeed true, the people who thought it up should be round up and shot.

Heck yes!!

It will be interesting to see if it is true.

Where is Brad when you need him? He is doing his happily married thing and not being on the computer in the middle of the night anymore.
Sigh...
The Momster

[oiuyt]

Where is Brad when you need him? He is doing his happily married thing and not being on the computer in the middle of the night anymore.

I wish. I've spent the past two hours writing a fairly involved and lengthy email on a topic with which I am distinctly displeased. I should be in bed and I wish I were in bed. I need to learn not to check my email before going to sleep.

If there's been any such rules change, it has not yet been conveyed to the Temple coaches.

While it's quite believable that the NCAA would make stupid rules changes, that they might not ensure that such changes are promptly communicated to all of the teams, and/or that their decisions could be quite arbitrary, which combine to make it possible that such a change has occured without me knowing it yet, I'd also like to point out that it's extraordinarily common for mis-information about "decisions" made by the NCAA to be given to people. Both inadvertantly and otherwise.

I'll shake some trees and see if we can find out anything. That may or may not yield any results, and a lack of results, unfortunately, doesn't provide any additional information on the veracity of the rumor.

-B

[4qtrs]

It does seem like funny timing considering this is an Olympic year. Lets hope it is only a rumor.

[Craig]

I've got a call into the NCAA now. Once I have reliable information (and have it confirmed) I'll post the information.

Craig

[KD5MDK]

From Rumor to Research in a bit over 6 hours.

[Philistine]

First--my strong suggestion is to have the student's coach check with the school's compliance officer to get an official ruling from the NCAA. This is really the only way to make sure the athlete is protected.

That being said--I think this is something of a non-issue. AFAICT, it appears that this is based on Section 16.8.1.3 of the Div I Bylaws.

In particular, the part that was added in January, effective now (8/1/07), allows an institution to provide expenses for:

(b) Specific competition (e.g., Olympic Trials) from which participants may directly qualify for the Olympic Games, Pan American Games, World Championships, World Cup and World University Games; and (Revised: 1/9/96 effective 8/1/96, 1/8/07 effective 8/1/07)

(c) One national team tryout competition event from which participants are selected for the national team that will participate in the Olympic Games, Pan American Games, World Championships, World Cup or World University Games. Although national team participants may be selected from multiple tryout events for a particular listed competitive event, an institution may provide expenses for only one such tryout event for each of the listed competitive events. (Adopted: 1/8/07 effective 8/1/07)

All this does is allow expenses to be paid by the school--but only for one event. (Tangentially, it also allows a coach from the school to be there and coach the fencer). Section b is mostly a rephrasing of the old rule, but Section c is completely new. I suspect that's where the rumor came from--it makes clear that the institution can only provide expenses for one competition if there are multiple competitions used for selection (as there are in fencing).

I don't see any other changes that would impact at all on the issue--but it's very possible I've missed something. Again--check with the coach, who can get an official NCAA interpretation.

--Philistine

[NNR]

Would any of this stop a student from fencing in any NAC's at their own expense with a personal coach, while still fencing NCAA for a college team?

[KD5MDK]

As worded, not as I read it. Again, consult your compliance officer if this applies to you.

[bigdawg2121]

I'm pretty sure that the way this reads (and the way it is meant to read), is that teams may pay for ONE qualifying event (i.e. NAC) and not have it as part of their schedule. Currently NCAA Div 1 teams are limited to 11 dates and for most teams that doesn't really mean much as they use far fewer than 11 dates for collegiate fencing and designate NACs as part of their schedules. Mostly what this should do is allow teams such as Temple, UNC, and NWU that tend to fence a lot of their dates to have some room to send fencers to NACs outside of this......

the other possible interpretation is that the NCAA wants to encourage teams to participate in more dual meets and use more of their dates for collegiate events...but honestly, I doubt that that's really going to happen, although it would be nice.

[oiuyt]

Thank you Philistine for finding what's likely the rules change that sparked the rumor.

I agree with BigDawg. This is for competitions in addition to those where the student athlete is representing the institution (covered in 16.8.1.2). If teams are properly accounting for their NAC (etc) dates against their maximum contest dates, I don't see that this increases the burden.

It's an ADDITIONAL mechanism to allow schools to fund athlete competition, not a limitation.

-B

[Craig]

I'm reading that the same way that bigdawg and oiuyt are, though I'll make sure to run these when I talk to the NCAA.

Craig