guncurug

Conference realignment is far from over just because the Big Ten announced that it was satisfied stopping at 12 members.  In fact,  the so-called low major Division I conferences may be the next group to undergo reshuffling, as the moratorium on moving up to Division I is drawing to an end and a number of Division II programs are examining the possibility of moving up, including the University of North Alabama.  

The NCAA just has a knack for finding itself in court.  I think it may because it is an academic organization composed of college presidents who, for the most part, have never been outside of academia and as a result don't always think through the practical ramifications of the policies that they decide to put into place.  A good example of that is the cause of this latest piece of litigation: the one year scholarship rule.  Currently, all athletic scholarships are one year, renewable scholarships, which are renewable solely at the discretion of the university.  The NCAA has in place a provision prohibiting a member school from granting a scholarship for a period that exceeds one year.

Joseph Agnew, a former Rice University football player has filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking to overturn the NCAA's rule on one year scholarship limits as well as the NCAA's limits on total number of scholarships that a school may extend in any given sport. In addition, Agnew claims that the limits constitute an unfair price-fixing scheme under federal anti-trust laws.  The plaintiff's attorneys seek certification as a class spo representing all athletes whose scholarships were not renewed. 

This is one more legal action for the embattled NCAA which paid out more than $84 million in legal fees last year. The group is battling Congress over its tax exempt status and it faces a class action suit from former students concerning over the appropriation of the players' likenesses.  On top of litigation, its members face rising costs from the arms race that has been sweeping Division I athletics as well as the costs associated with Title IX compliance and coping with the Great Recession, all of which combined to result in numerous schools having to go the route taken by Cal, Berkeley, which recently announced it was dropping five varsity sports.

In the most jarring example yet of the pressures being felt by athletic departments across the country caused by the Great Recession and the college sports arms race, University of California Berkeley announced it was dropping baseball, a sport which it had fielded a team since 1892. In addition, it is also dropping men's and women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse and is reducing men's hockey to club status, all as of the close of the 2011 academic year.

The athletic program has been receiving millions in subsidies from the school; in fact, last year the university provided athletics with $12 million in support.  With budgets tight across the entire university, the administration decided it could no longer justify support at that level.  These reductions will supposedly reduce the need for support down to a more manageable level of $5 million.

You have to wonder if cutting baseball was the most appropriate response.  Berkeley is not exactly a hockey hotbed and travel to other D-I hockey playing schools is expensive as they are few that are close.  The same is true for lacrosse, so cutting those programs makes sense.  However, baseball is a Pac-10(12) sport with a more than 100 year tradition at Cal and it's hard to picture a BCS school, particularly one that fancies itself as a major athletic institution without a baseball team.  Cutting baseball has also not gone down well with certain vocal and well-heeled alumni, including current major league ballplayers, which may lead to significant fund raising losses.

We all know how tough it's become to finance a college education and getting an athletic scholarship is harder than ever, what with the economy and, at the major college level, the out of control football and basketball arms race, forcing athletic directors to cut programs left and right.  Well, here is one scholarship I bet you never thought of: a bass fishing scholarship.  Bethel University, an NAIA member school in McKenzie Tennessee, offers bass fishing scholarships just the same way they do in all of the 19 intercollegiate sports in which the Wildcats compete.  One bass fishing scholarship was awarded in a rather unique way, to the winner of the high school fishing world finals, held at Lake Dardanelle, Russellville, Arkansas: