The stipulations surrounding student-athlete scholarships are as complicated as they are fluid. Recent NCAA legislation, passed via an institutional vote, allowed schools to offer up to four-year binding scholarship offers, as opposed to the one-year renewable scholarships that have become the norm.
Proponents of the change believe four-year scholarships provide student-athletes assurance of financial aid regardless of on-field performance, as long as academic and off-the-field activities meet expectations.
Student-athletes at the University of Idaho responded to the change positively.
“We were definitely in favor of it,” Calleigh Brown said.
Brown is the president of the Student-Athlete Council on campus, which sends representatives from each of the university’s programs to discuss academic and athletic issues.
She said most UI athletes found out about the scholarship legislation either through other athletes or from the conference’s SAC, which sends athletes from every school in the WAC.
“We were asked how we felt about it earlier in the year … I don’t think it’s a secret to athletes (that) we were in favor of it,” Brown said. “It’s hard having that pressure and that question of if you’re going to lose your scholarship based on how you perform.”
Brown said the athletic department never explicitly approached athletes about the legislation and the only time scholarships are discussed is when they are up for review.
“You don’t even talk (about) them with your coach, unless you are initially being recruited,” Brown said. “It’s a difficult matter in general, not just with this four-year. We sometimes don’t even know how much we’re going to get until we get renewal.”
Compliance Director John Wallace said many student-athletes come to campus and assume their scholarship will be good for four years, disregarding that the athletic department holds the right to review all scholarship awards at the end of the academic year.
“No coach could go in to a student-athlete’s home and say ‘I promise I can have your son or daughter on scholarship for four years,'” he said. “It is at the discretion of the athletic department whether a scholarship is going to be renewed, increased or decreased.”
The athletic department has flexibility whether a scholarship could be increased or decreased under the one-year scholarship system.
Wallace said it is customary for the athletic department to renew awards as long as athletes hold up their end of the bargain in the classroom and community.
“There’s a sentiment among coaches that if they recruit somebody, if they miss on them, that that’s on the coach, not on the student-athlete,” Wallace said. “So why punish the student-athlete the coach missed on.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]