SEC Commissioner Mike Slive last week visited the Univ. of Massachusetts as the exec-in-residence for the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management, and in a keynote address "laid out seven goals for the new subdivision of Division I that will house" the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12, according to Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com. The goals are as follows:
* Providing the "full cost of attendance to grant-in-aid recipients."
* Fulfilling the "health, safety and nutrition needs of student-athletes."
* Allow student-athletes out of eligibility to "complete their undergraduate degree without cost."
* Allow players "testing the professional waters" to receive better information.
* Cutting back on the "demands of sports so that student-athletes get more balance in their lives."
* Give better assistance for "academically at-risk student-athletes."
* Give student-athletes a "role and a vote in NCAA governance that affects them."
Slive said, "I was careful to say that what I was interested in is what the student-athletes were interested in getting, not how they got it." He added that changes will require a "21st century governance model within the NCAA and its structure that will preserve the collegiate model and allows our schools to make decisions that put student-athletes first." Slive: "This is the No. 1 priority of the five conferences and we are committed to seeing it through." The NCAA "expects to create the five-conference subdivision in August," and Slive estimated that it will take until "at least the first of the year to draw up the rules by which the schools will govern themselves." Slive and the other conference commissioners "hope delivering more benefits to student-athletes will forestall the judicial and executive branches of the federal government from doing the same" (ESPN.com, 4/22).
