Legislation may doom Santa Clara sports
By Brian Betz
A bill in the California State Legislature sponsored by two Democratic state senators but heavily criticized by collegiate athletics could make the 47 schools in the state ineligible for NCAA membership.
If passed, Senate Bill 193 would mean the end of such events as the Rose Bowl and well-known organizations like the Pac-10 and West Coast Conferences.
It would also kill any chances of national titles for Santa Clara sports.
"If it were to pass, basically it would prohibit us from adhering to a number of the NCAA rules, which inevitably would rule us in violation of the NCAA and make us unable to participate in the NCAA and its activities," said Santa Clara Athletic Director Cheryl Levick. "And that's our problem."
The Bill, sponsored by State Senators Kevin Murray and John Burton, proposes several changes that they say would aid student athletes throughout the state in regards to scholarships, health insurance, employment, licensing and transferring.
Since the bill was first introduced on Feb. 12 to the senate floor, it is now nearly halfway through the legislative process.
One provision of the bill would allow student athletes to sign with agents. Players could license their athletic name and reputation to obtain income.
Both senators could not be reached for comment this week.
Chardonnay Poole, a senior member on the women's soccer team, accuses Murray of making college "too fancy" for young players.
"You're a college athlete; you're not supposed to really have the luxury," said Poole, who is also President of the Student Athlete Leadership Committee at Santa Clara and who attended the Oct. 28 summit where three Stanford football players presented their scenarios.
"They're complaining because they can't buy toothpaste but you look at what they're wearing and you can see where the money's going," she said.
Summit organizers hoped to attract advocates of the bill, including Murray and Ramogi Huma, Chairman of the Collegiate Athletes Coalition.
Opponents of the legislation, including Stanford Athletic Director Ted Leland and NCAA President Myles Brand, followed with a response.
Some argue the bill focuses solely on men's basketball and football, although its title, the "Student Athletes' Bill of Rights," makes it sound otherwise.
"Its intent is to help elite football and basketball athletes, of which there are few that would make money off endorsements deals," said WCC Assistant Commissioner Gloria Nevarez. "That at the expense of thousands of other athletes would be devastating."
Both Poole and junior baseball player Ryan Chiarelli each felt Senator Murray's focus was completely on both sports.
"He constantly talked about student athletes, but it doesn't represent all student athletes," said Poole.
Added Chiarelli, "All [Murray] talked about was basketball and football this, basketball and football that."
Bill halfway through legislature
Senate Bill 193 is currently awaiting a majority vote by the Committee for Higher Education and the Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media.
Both are the two "special interests" committees that apply to this particular bill, according to Consultant for Higher Education Keith Nitta.
"The reason we're involved is that student athletes aren't getting fair treatment on those issues," said Nitta.
If those two committees pass it, the Appropriations Committee, which reviews the fiscal impact of the bill, would have to win a majority vote before the Senate assembly would hold the final vote.
Since the Senate has had to approve all the moves up to where the bill is now, it's "more than likely" that the final assembly vote would pass it, according to Nitta. The bill would then move to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk to be signed.
But whether it would be signed seems too early to predict.
"It isn't high on the radar of the governor yet because it still has a ways to go through the legislative process," said Nitta.
However, the bill's chances for success seemed strong from the beginning. In the first committee vote it passed 8-0 and after the third Senate debate hearing, it passed 26-10.
If the NCAA doesn't budge, California schools will have to convince the state legislature to drop or repeal the bill in order to maintain NCAA membership.
"I'm going to fight like crazy to stop this," said Levick. "The power of 47 schools, I think, is significant. And I don't even want to think about it being any other way than a strong, viable state going after as many championships as it wants."
Proposal mirrors some NCAA changes
Some opponents of the bill criticize Murray's quick efforts to push the bill through, noting that many of the legislation's provisions are slated for revision in NCAA rules.
"Some of the things they have been working on anyway and we've been trying to educate the senator on that," said Levick.
Ryan Chiarelli, the WCC Representative for Santa Clara athletes, echoed Levick's concerns.
"The NCAA is changing things, but it just takes time. Let them do their work and gradually things will get done."
An overview of the bill:
̢ۢ Provide full health insurance at "voluntary" conditioning sessions and summer workouts. The NCAA doesn't currently provide insurance for such training, but similar changes are in the works.
̢ۢ An athlete could license their name, such as on the back of a jersey, and make money from its sales. The NCAA has not proposed any solution thus far that would lift the ban on licensed representation.
̢ۢ Scholarships would increase to match the full cost of attendance, not merely grants-in-aid, which the NCAA defines as tuition and fees, room and board, and required textbooks. Athletes would get enough to cover the expenses such as the price of transportation. The NCAA is working on specific scholarship limits.
The full cost of attendance for a Santa Clara athlete is about $2,200 more a year. As an example, Levick showed how the bill would hurt women's soccer if the NCAA didn't make the amendment.
"That one part of the law would say that a student athlete could receive the full cost of attending school," she said.
"So that's probably here, $2,200 more than we allow. So we get all of our female soccer players who want to take advantage of that and they get $2,200 more. That puts us over the NCAA scholarship limit, which puts us in violation. Eventually we would be put on probation."
̢ۢ Opportunity for multi-year scholarships. Division I only allows year-to-year scholarship renewals and won't review this until 2005.
̢ۢ Athletes could collect an unlimited amount of earnings from on- or off-campus employment without it counted toward their full grant-in-aid or the institution's financial aid limitations.
̢ۢ Basketball and football players could transfer schools without having to sit out for a year. Transfers often result when a coach leaves, or, when probation is inflicted on a program.
• Athletes on teams under probation wouldn't have to forfeit a game or be denied participation in a tournament if they didn't violate NCAA rules themselves. Ã
Elimination of West Coast Conference possible
The existence of the West Coast Conference itself would be in serious jeopardy in that six of the WCC's eight teams reside in California.
"We'd have a league of Portland and Gonzaga," said WCC Commissioner Michael Gilleran. "For us it would be like if the nation's food ran out and the oil supply ran out. That'd be the end of the world.
"I'm not trying to equate this to the end of the world but I don't know what we'd do. I don't know if I would even be apart of the 'we'."
The WCC league office, owned by the eight member schools, operates solely from funds generated through men's basketball participation in the NCAA Tournament. That revenue would vanish if the bill passes.
Some questions remained unanswered for the rest of collegiate athletics.
"No idea, no idea," said Levick. "I think you're looking at a completely different world if this passes. But that's just in the state of California. Everyone else would be going along fine, it's just without us."
Gilleran, however, doesn't see the NCAA buckling under pressure.
"The bottom line is that this bill says you can't be involved in the NCAA," said Gilleran.
"[Murray] thinks the NCAA will back down. That they'll be so afraid of losing California that they'll change the rules."
Some proponents of the bill argue that change could have been done differently.
"I think it's the right decision on trying to pass some of these things," said Chiarelli.
"But I think Murray is pushing too hard, going about it the wrong way."
If the NCAA goes on without California, some argue that schools would become less able to attract in-state talent.
"We will not get top-caliber kids," Levick said. "They'll leave to other states that are members of the NCAA because they want scholarships and they want to play for a NCAA Championship."
Contact Brian Betz at (408) 554-4852 or at bbetz@scu.edu.