NCAA Says Athletes Can Go to Work

NASHVILLE — Time and time again, the proposal was listed on NCAA Convention agendas. Let the scholarship athlete hold a part-time job, earn a few extra bucks and be like any other college kid.

For decades, it was voted down.

Until Monday, when the NCAA changed its mind and passed it. Perhaps it was influenced by Bridget Niland, a feisty law student from the University of Buffalo, who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

When the Division I delegates approved legislation to allow part-time jobs--by a 169-150 margin with six abstentions--Niland’s reaction was a “quiet sigh.”

“We were told to keep our composure if something went our way,” Niland said. “But it was like a ‘Yes!’ ”

During a 90-minute debate that was sometimes contentious, but mostly comical and confused, Niland arose five times to challenge Division I delegates to pass the legislation it consistently shot down. And she did it with poise, despite attempts by several school presidents and faculty reps to have the idea either tabled or deferred.

“You have this fear of abuse that clouds every single legislation piece on work that has come up,” said Niland, in her third year on the eight-year-old committee. “It’s not so much, ‘we don’t want you to work,’ it’s more or less this fear that the playing field is not going to be level.”

At one point, meeting chairman Bob Sweazy, a faculty rep from Texas Tech, called a 20-minute break in the proceedings when he tried but failed to explain a procedural matter to a delegate which involved NCAA bylaws.

“It didn’t seem like it was planned,” said Niland, a leader of the 28-person, student-athlete advisory committee. “I think a person posed a question and probably turned the light bulb on in another person’s head and the confusion just snowballed from there.

“I don’t think it was a tactic, per se. It is a tactic to try to show that this is a procedural nightmare.”

The new legislation, which goes into effect Aug. 1, allows Division I scholarship athletes to earn as much as the difference between the value of their scholarship and the estimated full cost of attending that school. That amounts to about $2,500, give or take a few hundred dollars.

It’s not a great deal of money, but a radical departure from the past. Division I athletes on partial scholarships are able to work, but full scholarship athletes weren’t.

“This is a major shift in concept for this organization,” said Washington State president Sam Smith, who chairs the NCAA’s Presidents Commission.

Even before the break, unheard of during a business session, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told delegates it was time to stop being scared of abuses.

“It seems to me, we’re at a point where we have to take a deep breath and proceed,” he said. “It’s time to vote on this question and move forward. If we can’t move forward on this, there are a lot of other things we’ll be unable to deal with in the future.”

When the delegates returned from the break, the full convention was in the room, with Division II and III representatives joining Division I reps to consider other matters. But first, after a subsection of Proposal 62 -- which would have prohibited athletes from working while their sport was in season -- was voted out, Division I had to push the buttons on their voting machines.

“We were emotionally exhausted,” said Antonio Coley, a football player from Miami. “But we were ecstatic with the result. We know it’s not enough, but it’s a foot in the door.”

And that’s good enough for now.