Suzanne Staton' blog: N.C.A.A. President Favors Bigger Grants for Athletes

By ADAM HIMMELSBACH

WASHINGTON ? The N.C.A.A. president, Mark Emmert, said Monday that he supported a proposal that would let conferences increase grants to athletes by about $2,000, a move that critics say would escalate the financial disparity in college sports.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press

Mark Emmert spoke at a watchdog group's meeting.

This funding would be in addition to tuition, room, board, books and other expenses that are already covered by athletic scholarships. The increase is not considered payment for participation. Rather, Emmert said, it would help cover costs that student-athletes are unable to offset, because most do not have time to work part-time jobs.

?I?ve heard a lot of people say, ?Well, you want to do this $2,000 cost-of-attendance thing to reduce the probability of students breaking rules,? and that?s nonsense,? Emmert told the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics during a three-hour meeting at the Ritz-Carlton. ?People break rules because they break rules.?

Emmert said a final plan would be presented to the N.C.A.A.?s board of directors by the end of the week. If it is approved, individual conferences will have the option of adopting the policy.

But universities that operate outside the lucrative Bowl Championship Series conferences could struggle to fund this change, and the financial gap between teams in the major conferences and those outside could become even larger.

?President Emmert said some conferences will do this and some won?t, and it?s pretty clear to me who will and who won?t,? Boise State?s president, Robert Kustra, said. ?There?s already a great divide between larger conferences and the smaller conferences, and this is just going to exacerbate the gap between the haves and have-nots.?

Thomas Ross, the president of the University of North Carolina system, acknowledged Kustra?s fears. ?It does create an edge for the big guys,? he said.

Ross said he was concerned about how students might spend the $2,000. He suggested providing it on a debit card that allowed universities to see the receipts.

Louisiana State?s chancellor, Michael Martin, said his university could probably afford the added expense, but he would not be surprised if it was met with resistance on his campus.

?I?ve got 1,400 faculty members who would love to have $2,000 more a year having gone four years without any pay raise,? Martin said.

Martin, who was previously New Mexico State?s president, also said he empathized with the possible plight of a university that did not have the needed resources. He said that adding another $2,000 per athlete per year at New Mexico State could make it ?almost impossible to do anything but hang onto the edge.?

The Knight Commission, which is an N.C.A.A. watchdog group comprising college presidents and other leaders, said it would support the cost of the funding changes if the money were for students in financial need.

Other topics were addressed at Monday?s meeting, including new academic standards, stricter freshmen eligibility requirements and conference realignment.

Emmert said the minimum Academic Progress Rates required for teams to compete in the postseason could be raised to 900 in time for this season?s N.C.A.A. men?s basketball tournament. It could increase to 930 ? essentially corresponding to a 50 percent graduation rate ? in two years.

If the 900 rate had been in place last season, Emmert said, Connecticut, the men?s basketball national champion, would not have been eligible for the tournament.

Regarding conference realignment, Emmert said the N.C.A.A. was mostly taking a hands-off approach. But he said the sudden, frenetic changes to the conference landscape had been unsettling. He suggested that universities considering moves operate more openly in a 30-day window rather than making quick decisions behind closed doors.

?At the end of the day, individual presidents in particular have to feel good about trusting each other,? Emmert said. ?They?ve got to sit down and do business together. We?ve seen some erosion of that trust and confidence this year, and that bothers me a lot.?

Neither Emmert nor the university presidents here were sure when, how or even if conference realignment would end. But they agreed that the changes could be disconcerting.

?I think it?s far from over, and I think we could ultimately end up with two enormous conferences, one called ESPN and one called Fox,? said Martin, L.S.U.?s chancellor. ?I?m not exactly sure what we do about it.?