BFC to hear proposed changes for NCAA

The face of intercollegiate athletics could change with an approved proposal today by The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, which is made up of an alliance of faculty representatives, including IU professor Bob Eno. The coalition is proposing a draft that outlines three changes to the NCAA bylaws in five areas; admission of athletes, awarding of scholarships, curricular integrity, time commitments of athletes and academic advising for players. \nWhile the changes won't happen overnight, they will be proposed today by Eno, who is the coalition's co-chair and an IU professor of East Asian Languages & Cultures. Eno will present the proposal to the Bloomington Faculty Council this afternoon.\nAlthough major changes could be proposed to NCAA bylaws in the future, Eno said IU athletes and sports fans shouldn't worry about a sudden change if approved.\n"A lot of what we do at IU is already in conformity with the ideas that the coalition is proposing," he said. "IU doesn't have a history of problems in regard to campus athletic governance or academic integrity. Even if we adopted all the new procedures that came out of the 'Academic Integrity' document you would find very little change with what happened on campus because a lot of that stuff is stuff we already do."\nIn reality IU is one of only two Big Ten schools that has kept a clean slate over the last four decades, said Bruce Jaffee, professor of business economics and the IU faculty athletic representative. \n"I think we are in compliance in specific and general terms," Jaffee said. "I think we have a good program here. We have not had major violations or penalties in 40 years. Penn State and IU are the only Big Ten schools in 40 years that haven't had any violations. We are always interested in reform."\nFormed in 2002, The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics is made up of representatives from 45 colleges or universities out of the 117 included in Division I-A. The coalition's purpose is to become "a faculty voice in the national debate over the future of college sports," according to the coalition's Web site.\n"Basically what the coalition is about is trying to change is the national context of which we of all compete, which would reward programs that already have best practices who are often at a disadvantage competitively with programs that skip around the best practices, that cut corners and gain an advantage on the field by allowing their athletes to focus more simply on athletics rather than academics," Eno said.\nJaffee said the coalition's plans have become ones to which schools begin to model their athletic programs after, but to be cynical much is modeled after IU and there are still questions to be answered. With a presentation before the BFC today the coalition will begin to see what faculties think of plans to reform athletics and take a bigger step in the direction of academics.\n"I think why the coalition is important is that it gets the faculty up to the table in terms of reforming athletics," Jaffee said. "We are a player and we are a stake holder. But the main question here right now is how much (the faculty) will affect (it) is still a question."\n-- Contact Senior Writer Katie Schoenbaechler at kmschoen@indiana.edu.