As Seton Hill University (SHU) makes the jump from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) to the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), many teams and their coaching staffs are dealing with new rules and regulations. The sets of regulations that have been getting the most attention are those that regard practice hours.
According to Bruce Ivory, NCAA Compliance Coordinator, �This is what I get asked the most questions about, when and how much teams can practice, and what constitutes as practice hours.� In the NAIA, coaches had no stipulations put on their practices. In the NCAA, however, there is a whole set of rules and regulations they must comply with, as well as some additional paper work.
By Amy Dugan,
Staff Writer
As Seton Hill University (SHU) makes the jump from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) to the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), many teams and their coaching staffs are dealing with new rules and regulations. The sets of regulations that have been getting the most attention are those that regard practice hours.
According to Bruce Ivory, NCAA Compliance Coordinator, �This is what I get asked the most questions about, when and how much teams can practice, and what constitutes as practice hours.� In the NAIA, coaches had no stipulations put on their practices. In the NCAA, however, there is a whole set of rules and regulations they must comply with, as well as some additional paper work.
According to Ivory, there are two major sets of rules that coaches need to comply with, and those are the rules for both in-season practice/play and out-of-season practice.
For in-season teams there is the 20 hours per week rule. This rule states that any countable athletically-related activity must be less than 20 hours per week.
What constitutes as �countable athletically-related activity?� It is any required activity with an athletics purpose, involving student-athletes and at the direction of, or supervised by, any member or members of an institution’s coaching staff (including strength and conditioning coaches).
Any time spent practicing, lifting, conditioning, or in team meetings with the coach must be counted towards those 20 hours, as well as games and scrimmages.
Also, practices may be no longer than four hours per day and the players must be given one day off every week, where there are no games, practices, or meetings. However, coaches may use travel days as the teams day off, as travel time is not considered countable hours.
Furthermore, there is never allowed to be a practice after competition.
According to Marcus Thompson, a junior basketball player, �I feel that these changes are good, because it teaches the coaches to be more efficient in their preparation for the season and the games.�
Rob Thomas, a junior lacrosse player agrees with Thompson, �I think since our practice time is so regulated teams have to be more focused and use their practice time more wisely.�
However, when there is a break and no class is in session there is no time restraint on practices, with in reason, coaches can hold practice as many times a day for as long as they wish.
As for out-of-season play teams are allowed to practice no more than eight hours per week, this includes conditioning (without a ball), weight-lifting, and only two hours of individual skill instruction.
Also, when giving individual skill instruction there is only allowed to be four players in any one facility at the same time working with the coach at that time.
According to Thomas, �The only difference from this year’s out-of-season play compared to last is that it was a lot shorter.�
All of these hours are kept by the coach in the form of a log, and one of the student-athletes on the team must sign off that the hours have been correctly added and totalled, and the log sheet is then turned into Ivory. Ivory then reviews the logs to make sure there have been no violations.
If a violation should occur Ivory will contact those at fault to investigate the how, when, and where of what happened.
The penalty for the first violation is a 2:1 penalty, meaning, that if a team should exceed its 20 hours by thirty minutes they will then the next week have to knock-off an hour of practice time leaving them with only 19 countable hours to use.
Should this violation happen a second time it is considered a major violation, and more severe penalties may occur. Any further violations of these regulations could eventually lead to the removal of the coach who is in violation of the rules.
According to Ivory, �There has only been one reported violation the entire fall season.�
Ivory also stated, �I encourage athletes to be aware of these regulations, and to come to me anytime they feel there has been any sort of violation.�
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