Sixteen nationwide coaches associations have written the NCAA Division I Board of Governors in help of the Nationwide Junior Faculty Athletic Affiliation’s effort to vary decades-long eligibility necessities for junior faculty athletes. 

Calling these eligibility requirements “inexplicably extra stringent” for junior faculty athletes transferring to NCAA colleges, the NJCAA requested for “speedy change.” The letter was despatched to the NCAA on Monday. 

The coaches associations from soccer (AFCA) in addition to males’s and ladies’s basketball (NABC and WBCA) didn’t signal the letter and could also be working by itself communications with the NCAA. 

Particularly, the NJCAA is questioning why junior faculty athletes are required to have the next grade-point common (2.5) than athletes transferring between four-year establishments (2.0). 

As well as, the NJCAA is questioning these “completely different requirements” for JUCO athletes … 

• Tutorial non-qualifiers at a four-year college can regain eligibility after one tutorial yr in the event that they obtain 1.8 GPA over 24 credit score hours. A non-qualifying junior faculty athlete who graduates with a two-year diploma will need to have 48 transferrable credit score hours and not less than a 2.5 GPA to switch. 
• Transfers between four-year colleges have assured scholarships for the rest of their five-year eligibility clock. Junior faculty transfers will not be assured scholarships for the size of their NCAA eligibility.
• Athletes in varied sports activities are allowed a restricted variety of scrimmages. Consider baseball and softball collaborating in “fall ball” earlier than the spring season. If junior faculty athletes take part in additional than two scrimmages on the junior-college degree earlier than transferring, that counts as a season of competitors. 

The NJCAA has mainly taken the stance that two-year athletes are being discriminated in opposition to academically. 

“Pupil-athletes shouldn’t be punished or handled adversely as a result of they’ve enrolled in a two-year establishment earlier than transferring to an NCAA establishment,” the letter asserts. 

The destiny of junior faculty athletes has been highlighted currently amid a lawsuit by Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who received a preliminary injunction in district courtroom permitting him a sixth yr of eligibility after enjoying at New Mexico Navy Institute, a junior faculty. The NCAA is interesting. 

Diego Pavia’s (short-term) win vs. NCAA might open door for different JUCO transfers, however that will not be well-liked

Richard Johnson

There’s additionally an rising feeling that NJCAA colleges might monetize and formalize their relationship as a “minor league” to Division I.

The proportion of athletes from junior faculties that make up Division I rosters is just not clear due to the game and roster measurement. Nevertheless, one report mirrored the affect of the switch portal on JUCO gamers.

In 2018, Energy 5 soccer colleges averaged about two JUCO gamers per workforce (129), in accordance with one report. By 2021, the yr one-time switch guidelines began, that quantity dropped to 45. 

The letter is signed by Carol Bruggeman, CEO of the Nationwide Fastpitch Coaches Affiliation. She represents the coaches associations from area hockey, wrestling, males’s and ladies’s golf, cheerleading, monitor, baseball, males’s and ladies’s lacrosse, swimming and diving, equestrian, volleyball, tennis, water polo and acrobatics. 

The primary junior faculty was based in 1901. Some four-year faculty presidents again then concluded the primary two years of faculty weren’t essentially broad-based, “university-level” courses. Over time, JUCOs turned a haven for college kids who could not afford or weren’t academically prepared for a four-year faculty. 

Earlier than the affect of the portal, junior faculties have been seen as recruiting stops for fast replacements to shore up a roster. A number of the most well-known names in American sports activities have attended junior faculties. Amongst these are Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Bryce Harper as effectively a pair of Heisman winners, Roger Staubach and Cam Newton. Georgia’s Stetson Bennett received a pair of championships after attending Jones Faculty in Ellisville, Mississippi. 

The NJCAA has been round since 1938. Its 514 colleges are about half of the NCAA complete, and its funds is only a fraction of the NCAA’s $1 billion. The state of California has a separate group faculty athletic affiliation. 

NJCAA president and CEO Christopher Parker describes his relationship with NCAA president Charlie Baker as “nonexistent.”

“I’ve made efforts to attach with Charlie Baker to work collectively for the great of all college students,” Parker not too long ago informed CBS Sports activities, “However we have not obtained any indication of Charlie’s willingness to take action collaboratively.”

The Board of Governors is the NCAA’s highest governance physique and is liable for making long-term strategic selections.