On Aug 7, 11:28, "Greg R. Berge" wrote:
>A few years ago a Cornell defenseman (Steve Inglehart) lost his final year
>of eligibility because, I think, he had played Junior B after his 20th
>birthday.  I do not know what the exact letter of the law was then (or more
>to the point what it is now), but there is some strict limitation on how
>old a freshman can be (I think, contingent upon his experience in organized
>hockey but... I don't really know).
 
This may have changed recently, I'm not sure.  The rule basically is (was) that
you lose a year's eligibility for each season of "organized hockey" that you
play past your 20th birthday.  As for what constitutes a season, and/or what
happens to your eligibility if you turn 20 *during* a season, etc. I don't
really know.
 
As I recall, the real problem in Inglehart's case was that the rule was passed
AFTER he came to Cornell (I think it might have even been during his junior
year, 84-85) and he and others in his situation were not grandfathered in.  In
other words, there was no indication at the time he started his collegiate
career that he would have only three years' eligibility instead of the normal
four.
 
>BTW, is there a limit on how *young* an NCAA athlete can be?
 
I seriously doubt it.  Imagine the trouble the NCAA would be in if somebody
accelerated through junior high and high school and came to college as a
16-year-old (and I know somebody who did, although she was not an athlete), only
to find out that NCAA regulations prohibited him/her from athletics for a year
or two.  Excuse me, but doesn't that discriminate against brilliant students?
And with the proliferation of stories about student-athletes who make it through
their entire college career functionally illiterate, wouldn't something like
that make the NCAA look even stupider than it already does?
 
There have been 17-year-old freshman hockey players... dunno about anybody
younger than that.
 
>I just figure
>that, with high school seniors jumping to the pros in squeakball, the
>logical extension is for a high school sophomore to take a high school
>graduation equivalency exam and pop up in the back court at Kentucky, age
>15.
 
I'll bet there's a lower age limit on GED's, though.  You mean I could have
taken one in ninth grade and possibly skipped my entire high school experience?
Damn...
 
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
              strictly those of:
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95
LET'S GO RED!!                                                  DJF  5/27/94
"They're multi-purpose.  Not only do they put the clips on, they also take
 them off."
-- Defense contractor, explaining why his company charged the Pentagon $1,000
   for a pair of pliers (from "The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said")
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.