Taking On the NCAA

by David Moltz, Inside Higher Ed.com

"Some small private institutions are bristling at a set of National Collegiate Athletic Association rule changes that will require them to spend money on very specific upgrades to their sporting facilities.

Citing the economic downturn, the Presidents Council of the Centennial Conference has asked the NCAA to reconsider a handful of association-wide changes the Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved last year. The panel, which includes representatives from all three divisions, mandated that all football-sponsoring institutions provide referees with wireless microphones to announce penalties. It also ordered that all basketball-playing NCAA members have shot clocks that display tenths of seconds and are mounted on each backboard. All backboards must also have lights that illuminate when the shot clock has expired.

Though the changes do not become mandatory until fall 2010, and institutions will have had more than two years to make the necessary upgrades, the Centennial presidents argue that, given the recession, it is not prudent for them to spend money on these changes to their sporting facilities when they have other grave financial concerns in their academic departments."