At 12:27 AM -0400 9/3/96, J. Michael Jackson wrote:
> Howard Stein wrote:
>
> > With
> >  respect to scholarship players, the school must honor the scholarship for
> >  four years whether or not the player plays.
>
> This is absolutely untrue.  Despite the fact that the NCAA makes it very
> difficult and unpleasant for an athlete to change teams, a team can change
> players as it chooses.  A scholarship is for one year only and is renewed at
> the discretion of the school.
 
I think you're both partially right.  My understanding is that although
scholarships can be revoked or cut, there are limitations on when a school
can do this.  For example, I don't believe you can cut a player's
scholarship just because you cut him from the team.  On the other hand, I
think you can cut it if he does poorly enough in school or gets in certain
kinds of trouble.
 
I believe the Letter of Intent spells this all out, but basically, as I
understand it, if a SA continues to do well enough in school and stays out
of trouble, and tries to make the team, the school will have a hard time
cutting the scholarship.  There's probably something in the NCAA Manual
that explains this.
 
However, I also have no trouble believing that there are some possibly
unscrupulous coaches out there who might twist the rules as best as they
can to revoke a player's scholarship and give it to someone else.  This
might be a problem with the way the rules are written, too, if they allow
such actions.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
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