July 9, nytimes.com
N.C.A.A. and Coaches to Discuss New Limits for International Players
By JOE DRAPE (NYT) 770 words
Published: July 9, 2006
College tennis coaches are to meet with N.C.A.A. officials today and tomorrow to discuss potential changes to rules regarding the amateur status of international players.
Among the proposals to be discussed are limits on the number of professional events that an international player can compete in before entering college and uniform rules on the amount of expenses a player can claim to offset prize money. Some coaches also plan to ask for more severe penalties when foreign athletes are found to have violated rules on amateur status.
”We want to look at what rules are in the books that make sense and those that do not,” said David Benjamin, the executive director of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. He will lead a group of 10 men’s and women’s coaches for two days of meetings at the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s headquarters in Indianapolis. ”We want to see if there is some way to make the system work better,” he said.
N.C.A.A rules say that athletes who have accepted prize money beyond their expenses in any tournament, or who have played for a professional team in a sport, cannot compete collegiately in that sport. Over the past 12 years, however, coaches have contended that scores of tennis players from other countries had routinely violated those rules and joined American colleges and universities as failed professionals.
They say that such players are older and more experienced than college players from the United States and that it is unfair that they are granted scholarships at the expense of true amateurs.
The coaches have also been critical of the N.C.A.A.’s response to their complaints, describing it as lackadaisical and saying it has emboldened some colleges to make loose interpretations of amateur status.
In April, after an article in The New York Times about how college tennis is dominated by older international players with a wealth of experience on professional tours in Europe, Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Gordon Gee, asked his fellow university presidents to address the issue.
He blamed a confusing rulebook and a lack of oversight by individual universities and by the N.C.A.A. for creating a climate in which a win-at-all-cost-mentality had seeped into nonrevenue sports like tennis.
Wally Renfro, the senior adviser to the N.C.A.A.’s president, Myles Brand, said the association hoped this meeting would be the first step toward building consensus on the college tennis coaching committee, which has been divided over the influx of foreign players. ”It’s an opportunity for the coaches to learn about the reinstatement process and eligibility issues and to express their positions on the whole issue of international athletes,” he said.
Coaches who recruit international players argue that they need to expand their recruiting base to compete and that they are following the N.C.A.A.’s guidelines.
Over all, 28 percent of the players on Division I men’s tennis teams from 1999 to 2004 were foreigners, as were 21 percent of those on women’s teams, according to the N.C.A.A.
In May, at the N.C.A.A. individual championships, international players filled 43 of the 64 men’s slots and 29 of the 64 women’s berths.
Geoff Macdonald, Vanderbilt’s women’s coach, said college coaches were not against the international influence but were frustrated by the lack of a level playing field. He intends to propose capping the number of pro events an international player can play in before entering college.
”I don’t know if the number is 10 or 20 or a certain number per year,” Macdonald said. ”But we have to find a way to stop players who basically play a full-time professional circuit until they realize they are not good enough. Then they declare themselves an amateur, accept a scholarship and beat up on younger, less-experienced players.”
Sheila McInerney, the women’s tennis coach at Arizona State and the co-chairwoman of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s ethics and infractions committee, said the guidelines over what constituted expense money should be simplified and the rules already on the books enforced.
She said that the N.C.A.A.’s standard for ”reasonable and necessary” expenses allows athletes to mask the amount of prize money received. Beyond airfare and lodging, McInerney wants a set per diem for every athlete. She also wants the N.C.A.A. to take a harder line on athletes found in violation of amateur rules. In the past three years, the N.C.A.A. has ruled on the eligibility of 31 foreign tennis players. Three were barred from competition; some of the 28 ruled eligible were asked to sit out matches.