Non-BCS Leagues May Take Hit With Stipend

November 3, 2011 /

Las Vegas Review Journal, Ed Graney
http://www.lvrj.com/sports/non-bcs-leagues-take-another-hit-with-stipend-133138378.html

I figure Jim Livengood wakes up nowadays, exhales, looks around and wonders what it would be like having an easier job than athletic director at UNLV.

You know, like being a coal miner or an Alaskan crab fisherman.

The inequities of college athletics between the haves and have-nots became even broader recently when the NCAA agreed to increase grants to student-athletes by $2,000, allowing more pocket money for those on sports scholarships while at the same time widening the already expansive gap between schools in Bowl Championship Series leagues and those surviving on bread and water.

The annual stipend for conferences and individual schools is elective in name only. So too is the option now available to offer four-year scholarships over those renewed annually.

There is no debating here. Schools, big and small, rich and poor, must pay the money and offer the longer scholarship deals if they hope to retain any chance of competing. Those who don’t might as well get out of the athletics business and pour all those funds into the arts or elsewhere.

Imagine being a coach in a league that doesn’t offer the extra money and scholarship security when recruiting against one that does. You might as well be in a league whose main TV package doesn’t include ESPN or a major network recruits can identify without the use of digital video recorder.

Oops.

“The BCS conferences will just carve ($2,000 for each athlete) out of their television money,” Livengood said. “It will be easy for them. We don’t have that ability. But there is no question we have to find a way and offer it. The same goes now for offering (four-year scholarships).”

UNLV is crunching numbers and saving pennies and wondering how it will come up with what could be an additional $500,000 to $600,000 annually to pay the stipends. For starters, the Rebels likely will increase already vast fundraising efforts and slash already barren expenditures.

They will eat more bread and drink more water and maybe rethink that idea of not playing at West Virginia in football again any time soon.

None of this will stop cheaters from cheating across the college landscape, parents from shopping their star quarterback son to the highest bidders, star athletes from selling their autographed jerseys.

It might give the tennis or soccer player extra cash to travel home for the holidays, but a few grand won’t do much to impede the most sinister of programs/coaches/parents/handlers.

I’m not suggesting the stipend doesn’t have merit. An adjustment in compensation was needed because something had to be done to close the gap between a scholarship’s worth and the total cost of attendance, to allow student-athletes a way to afford some of the miscellaneous expenses they incur.

But while I have no idea where the NCAA pulled out such an amount as $2,000, even with the additional funds, you can be assured countless schools still will suffer a scholarship shortfall. Tough economic times, these.

Still, while issues must be settled regarding the stipend by individual conferences — are athletes on partial scholarships eligible for the same amount as those on full rides, will the money be awarded equally to equivalency sports as it is those in head counts, will women’s athletes be afforded the same amount as men? — there is no question non-BCS leagues such as the Mountain West are taking yet another major hit here.

“My job is to keep and save our 17 sports and be relative in 17 sports,” Livengood said. “I hate the thought that because of (financial issues) we get to a point where there is a different level playing field for many, where some of our sports are regional and some national. We can’t go down that path. That’s not my idea of a (successful) department.

“We have 17 sports. I’d love us to have 20, but we’re not going to have 20. But I don’t want us down to 14 or 15. It was inevitable that a (stipend for student-athletes) would happen. It’s what you want to make of it. We’re trying to figure out now what the exact cost for us will be. There are a lot of dynamics in play, but we don’t have a lot of latitude around here when it comes to finances.”

I say Livengood thinks more about that crab fisherman idea. What’s the big deal about hauling nets and cages weighing several hundred pounds in freezing rain and on icy decks above unsteady waters when compared to fighting the economic fight of a non-BCS school?

Fishing seems far less perilous.