Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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6 MAY 2020 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY PATRICK ENGEL I n the span of about two days in March, college sports went from op- erating as normal to halted entirely. And, as it turns out, halted for a while. The NCAA Tournament was swiftly canceled. Spring sports and their cham- pionship events soon followed suit. Careers halted. Careers ended. Teams forced apart without any send-offs. But the NCAA sent spring sport seniors a message with a massive ruling. The stadium will still be lit for them, hurdles still lined up on the track, white lines still painted if they want to step back between them one more time when next season arrives. The NCAA Division I Council an- nounced March 30 that all members of spring sports teams will get an extra year of eligibility, while winter ath- letes whose seasons were cut short during or right before postseason play will not be granted an extra year. Scholarship limits were expanded to account for incoming freshmen and spring seniors or graduate students who come back for one more season. Baseball's roster limit was also lifted. It's a commendable gesture by the NCAA to look out for the players' ca- reers and well-being, which of course sounds uplifting when written in a press release. Giving athletes who lost nearly all their seasons due to something out of their control an- other year is the sensible call. There will, though, be difficult deci- sions for schools, coaches and play- ers to make and potentially awkward conversations to have. The financial undertaking of adding a year of eligi- bility for everyone is a massive consid- eration. For some schools, it's possibly severe enough to make welcoming all seniors back an impossible task. With that in mind, the NCAA said as part of the ruling that schools will not be required to grant returning seniors the same amount of athletic scholar- ship money they were given for the 2019-20 academic year. A senior who was on a half-scholarship could be in- vited back for next season on a quarter- scholarship or even no scholarship. The rule does not apply to athletes who were already eligible for 2021. "For the seniors, it's definitely a tough situation because a few of them already had jobs lined up, but they want to play another year since they have it," said Spencer Myers, Notre Dame's starting center fielder. "It's a tough decision for a lot of people." EXAMINING THE COSTS Most spring sports are equivalency sports, where rosters are larger than the total number of scholarships allot- ted for the sport (non-athletic aid of- ten comes in play to help for athletes on partial scholarships). Baseball, for example, has 11.7 scholarships to split among a maximum of 27 players. The roster can have as many as 35 players, though that was lifted for 2021. "The Council's decision gives indi- vidual schools the flexibility to make decisions at a campus level," council chair and Penn athletics director M. Grace Calhoun said. "The Board of Governors encouraged conferences and schools to take action in the best interest of student-athletes and their communities, and now schools have the opportunity to do that." In the ruling, the council said schools can use the NCAA's Student Assistance Fund (SAF) to pay for scholarships for athletes who opt to return. Ordinarily, the SAF used it for helping athletes fund smaller costs they couldn't afford, like a flight home for a family emergency. As a private institution, Notre Dame's annual submissions to the NCAA Membership Financial Report- ing System are not available through public records. Those submissions would indicate the total number of athletes on scholarship and their costs. Some basic estimates can paint a picture of the expenses, though. Based on scholarship limits per sport, Notre Dame has 122.9 athletic schol- arships available for its 11 spring teams (baseball, men's and women's golf, men's and women's lacrosse, rowing, softball, men's and women's tennis, and men's and women's track and field). The estimated cost of tu- ition, room and board, meals and supplies (scholarships cover those) at Notre Dame for 2020-21 is nearly $75,000. With 122.9 scholarships used, the total estimated scholarship expenditures for spring sports next year would be about $9.22 million. That figure does not account for seniors who choose to return. This year, those 11 teams had 85 combined seniors. It's not known how many were given athletic aid. A spring scholarship budget around $9.22 million is much more than even a large public school like Indiana or fel- low ACC member North Carolina State, for example. Every Division I school, public or private, has the same athletic scholarship limits for a given sport. Do UNDER THE DOME ONE MORE CHANCE The NCAA gives spring athletes an extra season of eligibility, but that ushers in some complicated decisions Graduate student and baseball outfielder Eric Gilgenbach is among Notre Dame's 85 seniors across 11 spring sports who were given another year of eligibility. PHOTO COURTESY FIGHTING IRISH MEDIA