NCAA votes to allow schools to offer spring athletes additional year of eligibility
The NCAA voted Monday afternoon to ease many of its scholarship and roster restrictions and give schools the option to offer spring athletes an additional year of eligibility.
On March 12, the NCAA canceled all remaining winter championships and spring seasons in an effort to slow the spread of the coronanvirus. Monday’s vote didn’t apply to winter athletes, but it did offer some measure of relief for athletes that lost the majority of their seasons.
“The council’s decision gives individual schools the flexibility to make decisions at a campus level,” said council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletic director at Penn. “The board of governors encouraged conferences and schools to take action in the best interest of student-athletes and their communities, and now schools have the opportunity to do that,”
Financial aid rules were adjusted to allow teams to carry more players on scholarship, and the roster limit in baseball was increased. The limit was 35 players, and teams had 11.7 scholarships to split between them.
Schools will have the ability to use the NCAA’s Student Assistance Fund to pay for scholarships. Division I rules allow athletes to play four seasons in a five-year span, but Monday’s vote allows universities to extend all spring athletes’ five-year clock.
Schools can also offer athletes the option of returning for 2020-21 without requiring that they’re awarded the same level of financial aid. That will apply only to athletes who would have exhausted their eligibility this season.
Boise State’s baseball team had four players who were out of eligibility, not counting redshirt senior pitcher Jake Nelson, who was already granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA. Coach Gary Van Tol said last Tuesday that he already offered all of his seniors an additional year.
Boise State declined a request for a statement Monday afternoon.
The softball team has seven seniors, but none are listed on the roster as having sat out for a redshirt year.
Beach volleyball and gymnastics both only have two seniors on the roster, and the men’s and women’s track and field teams have six seniors between them. The men’s team has three athletes listed as graduate students.
This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 5:57 PM with the headline "NCAA votes to allow schools to offer spring athletes additional year of eligibility."
