Athletics officials reveal moratorium reform ideas

Although the meeting that could lead to league-wide reform of the seven-week athletic moratorium remains months away, athletics officials have come to a loose consensus on the changes they will propose later this academic year.

Gary Walters '67, the University's athletic director, said that officials have reached a broad framework for compromise that, as its centerpiece, would restrict practice to four days a week between the traditional and nontraditional seasons. The plan, which would replace the current moratorium, would retain the existing Ivy League limit of six practice hours per week during the inter-season period.

Walters said the tentative suggestion — in response to a call from the Ivy League presidents for reform ideas after their December meeting — came about after numerous conversations and meetings with administration officials, faculty, students, and athletics officials, in consultation with the Faculty Advisory Committee on Athletics.

The current moratorium stipulates that athletes may not participate in coach-supervised practices for seven weeks between the traditional and nontraditional sports seasons. Ivy League rules already limit nontraditional season practice days to 12, one-fourth of the 48 allowed under NCAA rules.

The moratorium was enacted during the summer in a unanimous vote by the Ivy League presidents to counter what they feared was a growing disparity between the academic lives of athletes and non-athletes.

Many student-athletes have voiced considerable — and sometimes rancorous — opposition to the moratorium, claiming that it unfairly limits the use of their free time; some raised questions of safety as well.

President Tilghman, in an open meeting with athletes and the rest of the University community last December, acknowledged the policy in its current state to be something of a "blunt instrument," a phrase echoed by many in describing its effects, especially on sports with wildly divergent practice requirements and seasonal schedules.

But yesterday, Tilghman said a discussion of the specific shape any reforms could take would be premature, citing the number of committees through which proposed changes will have to pass before reaching the presidents' committee this summer.

Even then, she said, any decisions made to Ivy League athletic rules require "unanimity, not consensus . . . We don't change things unless all eight schools agree."

"We are really just in the starting blocks," she said, "and we are not going to have a clear idea of what the recommendations are going to be probably for another month."

While acknowledging — even emphasizing — the tentative nature of any upcoming reform, Walters said he believes there is a strong possibility that the proposal will receive widespread support. "[It] addresses the philosophical concern about intensity while at the same time recognizing some of the other issues related to conditioning and health and safety that would be compromised" if the moratorium remained as it currently stands, he said.

Professor Jim Doig, chairman of the six-member Faculty Advisory Committee on Athletics, said that although major differences exist among sports programs in the Ivy League, he thought there "would be fairly widespread agreement" on the kinds of changes the University athletics consortium will propose, especially since he believes they would confer no particular advantages to one school or sport over any other.

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He said the FACA had completed a preliminary report, studying one class at the University, that indicated no large disparity between the academic performance of athletes and of other students at Princeton. He also shared his worries that surveys comparing athlete and non-athlete students place too much emphasis on grade point averages and not enough on independent work, such as the senior thesis.

Doig said a more extensive study, conducted by the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life, is in the process of analyzing the subject using a much broader class sample.

While active student involvement in the debate has tapered off since last December, talk about the moratorium has not, according to Jason White '03, co-chair of the USG's Varsity Student Athletic Committee. He said the VSAC is waiting to see if the athletic directors' proposal adequately addresses athletes' concerns.

White said he thought there was a way to find a compromise between those concerns and the presidents' desire to "guarantee their student-athletes are free to pursue other interests."

"What we're hoping for is a middle ground where this is no set of weeks," he said, "where we're allowed sufficient time to practice with these restrictions."

White also voiced concern that the moratorium represented a large step toward edging the NCAA Division I Ivy League down to Division III.

Tilghman, however, said no such changes are under discussion. "I think what's very interesting," she said, "is that there are discussions within the NCAA to try to be more like the Ivy League."

She also said no admissions policy changes regarding athletics are in the works, and that she hopes the emphasis on mandated free time for academic discovery will turn "into a plus for recruiting student-athletes."

Tilghman stressed the importance of creating a community in which an athlete would be valued "as an intellect and a student as much as valued as an athlete. For the kinds of students we are trying to attract to Princeton, that will be a tremendous selling point," she said.

Regarding the University's stance on the issue compared to the seven other league schools, she said "we are more on the pro-moratorium than the anti-moratorium [side, but] not to the point where we're willing to defend a system that failed to accomplish its goals."