West Virginia Ready To Offer Multi-Year Scholarships

Charleston Daily Mail, Mike Casazza

http://www.dailymail.com/Sports/201205060059

Despite its initial opposition to the plan, West Virginia University is ready to offer multi-year scholarships to prospective student-athletes in all sports.

“If a coach feels the desire to make that commitment to a recruit, then he or she can do it, WVU Athletic Director Oliver Luck said.

In October, the NCAA ruled to let schools offer four-year scholarships, a deviation from the one-year scholarships that are renewable at the end of every academic year. It met resistance from West Virginia for both financial and philosophical reasons.

Schools with smaller athletic budgets feared they might not be able to make the monetary commitment needed to keep up with more affluent competition. Other schools, both rich and modest, were concerned about making long-term pledges to a player who might not develop or might not fit a specific system upon a coaching change.

In February, a vote of the Division I schools fell just short of overriding the NCAA’s recommendation. The vote needed 62.5 percent of the 330 schools to support overriding. The vote ended with 62.1 percent – two schools short of what was required.

WVU voted to support the override, as did the Big 12 Conference as a whole and all of its nine other members.

No other Bowl Championship Series conference voted to support overriding the rule.

Luck said the Mountaineers will go with the plan now and that schools risk a competitive disadvantage if they do not.

The TCU AD (Chris Del Conte) was telling a story about two Olympic sport athletes from separate sports and both had four-year scholarship offers from SEC schools, Luck said. The fact of the matter is other schools out there are doing it now.

“We’ve said it’s permissible and we can do it if we want. We’ll see what the NCAA continues to do legislation-wise because we want to make sure we have the weapon in our arsenal.”

West Virginia Ready To Offer Multi-Year Scholarships

Charleston Daily Mail, Mike Casazza

http://www.dailymail.com/Sports/201205060059

Despite its initial opposition to the plan, West Virginia University is ready to offer multi-year scholarships to prospective student-athletes in all sports.

“If a coach feels the desire to make that commitment to a recruit, then he or she can do it, WVU Athletic Director Oliver Luck said.

In October, the NCAA ruled to let schools offer four-year scholarships, a deviation from the one-year scholarships that are renewable at the end of every academic year. It met resistance from West Virginia for both financial and philosophical reasons.

Schools with smaller athletic budgets feared they might not be able to make the monetary commitment needed to keep up with more affluent competition. Other schools, both rich and modest, were concerned about making long-term pledges to a player who might not develop or might not fit a specific system upon a coaching change.

In February, a vote of the Division I schools fell just short of overriding the NCAA’s recommendation. The vote needed 62.5 percent of the 330 schools to support overriding. The vote ended with 62.1 percent – two schools short of what was required.

WVU voted to support the override, as did the Big 12 Conference as a whole and all of its nine other members.

No other Bowl Championship Series conference voted to support overriding the rule.

Luck said the Mountaineers will go with the plan now and that schools risk a competitive disadvantage if they do not.

The TCU AD (Chris Del Conte) was telling a story about two Olympic sport athletes from separate sports and both had four-year scholarship offers from SEC schools, Luck said. The fact of the matter is other schools out there are doing it now.

“We’ve said it’s permissible and we can do it if we want. We’ll see what the NCAA continues to do legislation-wise because we want to make sure we have the weapon in our arsenal.”