ARTICLE, LINK, HIGHTLIGHTS!
The question made Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes throw back his head and laugh. During a break from ACC spring meetings last week, Barnes was talking to reporters about the new initiatives in college athletics, including the cost-of-attendance checks schools can write for their student-athletes starting this year.
Two months ago, when Barnes was athletic director at Utah State, the state legislature approved $1.5 million in funding, partially earmarked for expenses such as meals and clothing that go beyond the cost of a scholarship.
Now that he is at Pitt, Barnes was asked if plans a make a similar request of Harrisburg to help fund Pitt's cost-of-attendance. “No,” he said laughing. “At Utah State, that was the best means. That is not the case here.”
And for good reason. Pitt received $20.8 million for 2013-2014 large part because of the ACC's 15-year, $3.6 billion ESPN contract, ESPN.com reported. That came from a total revenue pot of $291.7 million, which is 19.4 percent more than the previous year when the 15-school league had only 12 members.
There stands the biggest difference between the “haves” — the 65 Power 5 conference schools — and the so-called “have-nots” of college athletics — institutions such as Utah State of the Mountain West Conference.
The NCAA adopted autonomy legislation in January, which allowed the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC to venture out on their own and not have their key decisions tied to the limitations of smaller schools.
“You want to be able to set your own pace,” Barnes said, “particularly as it relates to the student-athlete experience. To be able to move some of those initiatives forward without being held up because others don't have the means or resources — as long as it's right for the student-athlete — is the right way to go.”
Autonomy has allowed Pitt to offer more meals, with an eye toward nutrition, officials say. During spring practice, players were offered breakfast, lunch and dinner. A brunch is available during informal May/June/July workouts. “(Autonomy) is a little less restrictive in some areas, like being able to feed our guys,” Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney said. “For our purposes, it's absolutely good.”
Autonomy offers athletes more than just an extra option on the salad bar. Other measures approved in January establish:
• A concussion safety protocol
• A discretionary student-athlete assistance fund
• An allowance for student-athletes to borrow against potential future earnings to purchase loss-of-value insurance
• The inability to remove scholarships based on athletic performance
The final proposal was important to many of the 15 student-athlete representatives, including Pitt football player Artie Rowell, who were part of the 80-member voting group that approved autonomy. “We have the freedom to act autonomously, but we have the responsibility to do so wisely,” Wake Forest president Nathan Hatch said in January.
Autonomy nearly has across-the-board support. The January vote was 79-1 with only Boston College dissenting. ACC commissioner John Swofford said he didn't know what took so long for the measure to be approved. “Maybe we should have been pushing that years ago,” he said. “Some things just have a point in time when they make sense and that time has come.”
He was quick to emphasize that autonomy doesn't signal a total break from the NCAA. “When it was all said and done, our five conferences did not want to leave the NCAA,” he said. “We weren't interested in dismantling the basketball tournament or the revenues from that tournament and how they were distributed.”
He said the Power 5 also are wary about moving too swiftly. “We tried to limit the number of legislative proposals to a relative few,” he said, “in order to concentrate on those few and not muddy the waters and try to change the world right out of the gate.”
But even more change could be on the way, Barnes said. “We've all sort of had this notion that we're under the same tent, we're all Division I, we all act and feel the same. The reality is that has changed.”
Jerry DiPaola is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.
Read more: http://triblive.com/sports/college/pitt/8326492-74/autonomy-pitt-barnes#ixzz3aNF7fUyK
The question made Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes throw back his head and laugh. During a break from ACC spring meetings last week, Barnes was talking to reporters about the new initiatives in college athletics, including the cost-of-attendance checks schools can write for their student-athletes starting this year.
Two months ago, when Barnes was athletic director at Utah State, the state legislature approved $1.5 million in funding, partially earmarked for expenses such as meals and clothing that go beyond the cost of a scholarship.
Now that he is at Pitt, Barnes was asked if plans a make a similar request of Harrisburg to help fund Pitt's cost-of-attendance. “No,” he said laughing. “At Utah State, that was the best means. That is not the case here.”
And for good reason. Pitt received $20.8 million for 2013-2014 large part because of the ACC's 15-year, $3.6 billion ESPN contract, ESPN.com reported. That came from a total revenue pot of $291.7 million, which is 19.4 percent more than the previous year when the 15-school league had only 12 members.
There stands the biggest difference between the “haves” — the 65 Power 5 conference schools — and the so-called “have-nots” of college athletics — institutions such as Utah State of the Mountain West Conference.
The NCAA adopted autonomy legislation in January, which allowed the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC to venture out on their own and not have their key decisions tied to the limitations of smaller schools.
“You want to be able to set your own pace,” Barnes said, “particularly as it relates to the student-athlete experience. To be able to move some of those initiatives forward without being held up because others don't have the means or resources — as long as it's right for the student-athlete — is the right way to go.”
Autonomy has allowed Pitt to offer more meals, with an eye toward nutrition, officials say. During spring practice, players were offered breakfast, lunch and dinner. A brunch is available during informal May/June/July workouts. “(Autonomy) is a little less restrictive in some areas, like being able to feed our guys,” Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney said. “For our purposes, it's absolutely good.”
Autonomy offers athletes more than just an extra option on the salad bar. Other measures approved in January establish:
• A concussion safety protocol
• A discretionary student-athlete assistance fund
• An allowance for student-athletes to borrow against potential future earnings to purchase loss-of-value insurance
• The inability to remove scholarships based on athletic performance
The final proposal was important to many of the 15 student-athlete representatives, including Pitt football player Artie Rowell, who were part of the 80-member voting group that approved autonomy. “We have the freedom to act autonomously, but we have the responsibility to do so wisely,” Wake Forest president Nathan Hatch said in January.
Autonomy nearly has across-the-board support. The January vote was 79-1 with only Boston College dissenting. ACC commissioner John Swofford said he didn't know what took so long for the measure to be approved. “Maybe we should have been pushing that years ago,” he said. “Some things just have a point in time when they make sense and that time has come.”
He was quick to emphasize that autonomy doesn't signal a total break from the NCAA. “When it was all said and done, our five conferences did not want to leave the NCAA,” he said. “We weren't interested in dismantling the basketball tournament or the revenues from that tournament and how they were distributed.”
He said the Power 5 also are wary about moving too swiftly. “We tried to limit the number of legislative proposals to a relative few,” he said, “in order to concentrate on those few and not muddy the waters and try to change the world right out of the gate.”
But even more change could be on the way, Barnes said. “We've all sort of had this notion that we're under the same tent, we're all Division I, we all act and feel the same. The reality is that has changed.”
Jerry DiPaola is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.
Read more: http://triblive.com/sports/college/pitt/8326492-74/autonomy-pitt-barnes#ixzz3aNF7fUyK
