Academically Troubled Freshmen May Get Break From the NCAA

KANSAS CITY, Mo. â€”  The NCAA Council on Wednesday endorsed a proposal by the President’s Commission to relax restrictions on partial qualifiers--incoming freshman who do not meet all of the academic requirements.

The council, the main bureaucratic arm of the NCAA, gave its blessing to the proposal for all freshman who do not meet the minimum scores on standardized tests to still receive scholarship aid and practice with their teams.

They would not, however, be able to play in games.

The proposal will be voted on by Division I-A schools during the NCAA convention in January.

Currently, partial qualifiers can be admitted to school but must pay their own way and cannot practice or play their freshman year.

The proposal is in response to the complaints of many coaches, particularly members of the Black Coaches Assn.

Meanwhile, the council stopped short of making a decision on awarding a fourth year of eligibility to partial qualifiers.

The proposal would define a partial qualifier as a freshman who didn’t make a combined 700 on the SAT or a 17 on the ACT, but achieved a 2.5 grade-point in a core curriculum of 13 courses in high school.

Currently, incoming athletes must meet both the standardized test score and the grade-point requirements.

The council also reversed itself and withdrew its support for a sliding scale in which a lower test score could be compensated for by a higher grade-point.