Why the NCAA

NCAA President Neils Thompson stated recently when addressing a Congressional subcommittee: "The competitive athletic programs of the colleges are designed to be a vital part of the educational system. A basic purpose of this Association is to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of the educational program and the athletes as an integral part of the student body. ..."

The NCAA is a voluntary, unincorporated association of some 850 four-year, post-secondary educational institutions. The NCAA has no identity, no policy, no functions other than those which have been assigned to it by its member institutions, meeting annually in open convention. NCAA policy is not created in some dark corner by some self-perpetuating group of individuals; it is established and implemented by the NCAA's member institutions themselves, on the basis of one vote per institution. NCAA policies and rules procedures exist only because the NCAA members have voted them into existence.

Thus, the college community has banded together to participate in the establishment and evolution of a common, national set of rules governing the conduct of intercollegiate athletics, and to offer the opportunity for student-athletes enrolled in those in- stitutions to participate in NCAA championship competition. The institutions of higher education will remain within the NCAA, or new members will join, only as long as the NCAA's services are satisfactory.

Enough of generalities. What does membership in the National Collegiate Athletic Association mean to Dartmouth College?

The NCAA offers a saneness to the world of intercollegiate athletics. Sanity relative to recruiting, financial aid, academic standards, extra events, television, the duration of the practice and playing seasons, academic progress and eligibility for intercollegiate athletics, championship events, and on and on.

Perhaps the best example of the need for a national organization for the world of intercollegiate athletics is television. While some would perhaps like to watch Notre Dame, Michigan, and other biggies on television every Saturday rather than Brown versus Yale or Hobart versus St. Lawrence, without an NCAA Television Plan and the related air controls there would be chaos.

Imagine, if you will, no NCAA Television Plan. We would see institutions in the top 20 every Saturday afternoon, and I dare say every Saturday evening, in all parts of the country. In addition, individual conferences such as the Big Ten, the Big Eight, and in- deed the Ivy Group would sell their own football television programs independently, and we would be competing against each other. The in-stadium attendance would be adversely affected and chaos would develop. While the majority of the proceeds from football television go to the competing institutions, the first eight per cent goes directly to the NCAA to finance the promotion of college football and NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships of $1,500, of which Dartmouth athletes boast 17 since 1966.

Any intercollegiate athlete who excels at his own institution or in his own league is desirous of testing his abilities with the best. The NCAA sponsors and conducts better than 40 championships, and Dartmouth individuals and teams - their expenses paid by the NCAA - have been prominent in the national arena. In the most recent past, Dartmouth participation in NCAA Division I championship competition includes the Dartmouth ski team on an annual basis (in 1975 they were national co-champions). Swimmers annually qualify for the NCAA championship meet, and our golfers, both individuals and team, have participated in each of the past five years. Track, cross-country, wrestling, and tennis athletes from Dartmouth College have also been annual participants, while our varsity soccer and hockey teams have recently been selected for NCAA qualifying tournaments.

Any organization with a large membership is a heterogeneous group with varying philosophies, principles, and methods of operation. The Ivies certainly think differently than the Southwest Conference, yet we have an equal vote on the floor of the convention and we are able to propose and pass legislation which is in our best interest. Just last January, there was a move to reorganize the NCAA into divisions which would have found the Ivy League in Division II rather than continuing to enjoy our Division I status. The stated motive for this legislation was to place schools with broad-based programs and opportunities for participation in the top division, and yet the criteria for membership in Division I included stadium attendance, capacity, and records against other Division I schools. The Ivies indicated that if indeed Division I were to include those institutions with complete athletic opportunities for their undergraduates, then a fairer criterion would be for institutions to have a minimum of 12 intercollegiate sports. This passed and we remain in the top NCAA division.

If the NCAA did not exist, where else would diverse schools be able to gather and discuss, propose, and enact legislation which the consensus believes to be in the best interests of intercollegiate athletics?

Up until just a few years ago, each and every conference and indeed all member institutions had different policies concerning the number of football scholarships. Some conferences permitted up to 45 per year or a maximum of 140 outstanding at any one time. Five years ago, the NCAA membership adopted legislation limiting the total number which would be granted in any one year to 30 and a maximum at any one time to 95. Many believe this national limitation has spread the football talent among the membership, and thus the schools which annually dominated intercollegiate football are no longer able to hoard talent. The result is a more competitive intercollegiate football situation.

There is a desire and necessity for increased support for women's athletics. The big-time institutions face the necessity of finding monies for an equal number of scholarships for women (equal to the number now given to men), and a national organization is the only forum we have for discussing problems of this kind. Economies in athletics, number of coaches, limitations on recruiting, and more specifically financial aid proposals can be discussed logically only within a group which has the best interests of intercollegiate athletics in mind. At the January 1979 NCAA convention, Dartmouth and the Ivy Group will propose that the convention adopt a financial aid philosophy and policy that would require all institutions to award financial aid solely on the basis of financial need, with no regard to sex or athletic ability. This might well be the year in which legislation of this kind is passed.

Is the NCAA worthwhile? A resounding yes for Dartmouth.

Director of athletics since 1967, Seaver Peters has been a memberof the television and executive committees of the NCAA.