University Dally Kansan
Friday, October 24, 1975
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Coaches criticize stifling NCAA regulation
"I'm upset with a big, vast, bulky organ that no longer has a heart or a arm for the bed."
"The athlete is the most important person in the whole NCAA. He has to come first. And yet the people who administer athletics seem to put him last."
Those bitting words were recently issued from Bob Timmons, University of Kansas track coach, as he reviewed the results of a study by a Convention on Economy last August.
WHAT HAS THE NCAA DONE?
"I think it a disgrace." Timmons says,
"an absolute disgrace, the things they've done."
In an attempt t] combat inflation and assure its member schools of a degree of financial security, the NCAA has voted new rules and restrictions affecting almost every collegiate intercollegiate athletics; recruit, recruitment, scholarships, squad size and elibility.
Some schools gave serious thought to dropping their entire intercollegiate sports team.
The new rules didn't appear out of nowhere, however. In the past five years, as a result of economic conditions, 20 NCA student schools have had to eliminate their football programs. Many athletic departments were modified with enough red ink to fill a swimming pool.
So when it was learned that the NCAA had called a convention for mid-August to
'I think it's a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, the things they've done.'
consider 73 cost-cutting proposals, athletic directors and college students across the country.
EVERYONE APPLAUDED THE NCAA as it called on delegates from its 700 member schools to meet August 14-15 in Chicago.
But later, those cheers of approval turned into snarls of reproach, as the ramifications of the new rules were subjected to closer scrutiny.
In a recent survey of KU coaches, reactions to the NCAA's new rules ranged from mild displeasure to frothing denunciation. Words such as "idiot," "taburd," "ridiculous," "tragic" and "disastrous" spiced their comments.
The amendments to the NCAA constitution and the by laws that caused the greatest stir fall into the following four categories:
KU basketball is unaffected. The NCAA KU basketball is unaffected. The NCAA part-time. KU is at the limit now.
COACHING STAFFS - The NCAA has a limit on the number of football and basketball assistants a school may employ. The limit on football is one head coach, but the limit on basketball coaches. KU now has 11 full-time assistant coaches. The rule takes effect Aug. 1, 1976.
SQUAD SIZE—A rule limiting the number of athletes a school can take on a road trip or have suit up at home has been in effect for several months. While the NCAA and Big Eight conference have had travel squad limits in the past, this is the first time a home squad has been assigned a maximum.
SCHOLARSHIPS- A Division 1 school can award only 95 football and 15 basketball full-scholarships (rooms, board, tuition, fees, books and course expenses). The $1$ a month stipend has been eliminated. The rule doesn't take effect until the 1977-78
'I don't believe the coaches had any type of input that they felt they should have.'
school year, but schools must begin making
progress toward conforming now.
RECruitment—The NCAA has placed a limit on the number of prospects a school can fly in to recruit at the University. A limit on paid visits has been assigned to each sport. Before this year, no such limits existed.
The NCAA has said a high school athlete can make no more than six paid visits to schools recruiting him. The college must visit one prospect more than three times.
An observation by Dick Reamon, KU men's swim coach, was typical of the era.
"IALL ME FOR SAVING him," he said. "There have got to be some curbs. But, at the same time, I do think that some long term problems will have more than emotion behind them are needed."
The issues that arouse emotion are numerous. One of the biggest was the fear of violence.
"I don't even know what they were thinking about," said Sam Miramura, KU basketball assistant coach and recruiter. "They just no input by coaches, I'm sure, on this."
Miranda was talking about a rule that prevented him from visiting a high school counselor.
Miranda said, "It should have been that you can visit from March 1 to September 1."
Rather than pressuring a player to sign with a college while he is in the middle of his season, Miranda said it would be much better to allow contacts before the start of the season, when the athlete and his coach are more relaxed and less busy.
"IT'S COMPLETELY backwards,"
"I don't understand how they can sit down
Ken Stone Sports Writer
and make a rule that is just backwards on the parents what wants, the boy wants, the high school coach wants and what the totally different from what it should be.
Floyd Temple, KU's baseball coach since 1954, agreed that concedes had little impact.
"THERE'S NO QUESTION about it," Temple said. "Very few coaches were contacted as to how they felt. I think they went into it a little too quickly."
In fact, Temple said, * you put in some rules that aren't really going to save that*
Such sentiment was echoed by Bob Lock-wood, men's gymnastics coach.
"I don't believe the coaches had any type of input that they felt they should have."
"I think all coaches knew—and all athletic directors and faculty reps knew that we would have to have some kind of cost-cutting change.
"BUT THE COACHES IVE visited, and myself in particular, are concerned that the so-called cost-cutting legislation is really not cutting costs."
Cyclle Walker, athletic director, has had similar suspicions for a long time.
"I'm opposed to national legislation," he said. "Although this action on the part of NCAA member schools was disgusted as an econom move, I really feel it might have been a move toward bringing the big schools in line with the smaller schools."
Walker said many small schools voted to cut scholarships, coaching staffs and recruiting because they thought they could afford to have a positive advantage of the larger schools.
KANSAS ISN'T IN THE financial bind that many schools its size are in, Walker said, so few of the rules would eventually save KU much money.
Bud Moore, KU football coach, said, "We're spending as much money recruiting as we can, but the biggest problem is
'This helps the metropolitan areas. A lot of them will be helped by the rules.'
farther. You're much more particular in your evaluation.
"You're a heck of a lot more careful with those 30 grants. If you make a mistake, it's hitched."
Both Walker and Moore pointed to the disadvantage that the NCAA had put KU in regarding schools in larger population areas.
"THIS DEFINITELY HELPS the metropolitan areas." Walker says, "We're in a non-populous area. Therefore we must bring in more people than, say, Southern Cal, UCLA, Ohio State or Texas. A lot of them will be helped by these new rules."
Moore said, "Penn State can have 75 people visit on their own, but if we bring a guy from a heavily-populated area, we're going to have to pay his way. It's a definite handicap to most every school in the Big Eight."
But the first amendment to be considered at the next Special Convention of the NCAA-on Jan. 13, 1976 at St. Louis-will be a rule limiting coaching staffs in non-revenue sports to one head coach and one part-time assistant.
Another handicap, say KU coaches, is the limit on the size of coaching staffs. Right now, only football at KU will be affected by NCAA rules.
THAT WORRIES EVERYBODY—Timmons, Lockwood and Reammost of all. But Moore is left with no choice. He will go to bed by next August unless the rule is changed.
"I think it's totally unfair," Moore said. "We're in one of the few professions in the country that are more comfortable with it."
"I went out all over the country and tried to hire the best people with the idea that we could do it," he said. Then, all of a sudden, with less than a year gone, we find out that we'll have to let some people
"I came here with the idea of getting a good job, and all the time I've been here I've been losing literally thousands of dollars. So now I may have to go back to a job that really wasn't much better than the one I left five years ago.
'I'm after a job right now. My situation is really a frightening one.'
"IT'S HARD FOR ME, personally speaking, to get excited about the rest of (the restrictions) because I see myself without a job in the fall of '76.
When the time comes to fire three
assistants, who will Moore let go?
"So I see all the work that I've put in here gone, almost like I was forgotten. It's bamboam'bame you're gone and that's it. You hate to leave you alone and come along and legislate you out of aJob."
If the NCAA is threatening to legislate coaches out of their jobs they are also tending to prevent athletes from competing, said Moore.
Gary Pepin, KU assistant track coach,
should hope that the NCAA will reject the argument.
"WHEN THESE KIDS WERE recruited they were told they would have the opportunity to make the traveling squar or to limit you to 80 gvws dressing at home.
Of the rules that limit a football traveling
squad to 48 and the home squad to 60, Moore
and Fletcher say:
"We've got guys that can't even dress for the home games. They have to sit in the stands like someone who's not participating, even though they were out there sweating and bleeding (in practice) like everybody else."
'What is proposed scares the hell out of me. These idiots . . . they don't know anything.'
the NCAA tournament last March, KU
won the team's tournament to play the last part one
of the game.
AGAINST NOTRE DAME, Ted Owens,
K.J. basketball coach, reminded,
the K.C. team of the need for
If the rule limiting basketball teams to a travel squad of 10 had been in effect at
"Right now, I'm desperately looking for a job," be said. "In fact, I'm after a job right now. My situation is really a frightening one."
"The ridiculous thing." Owens said, "is the limitation of 13 at home. That saves no money. It prevents a youngster, who works in the team, from even wearing your uniform.
"I'm perfectly willing to cut down our scholarship level. If we cut it up, 15 that's plenty. But we have a lot of fine young people in the room and now applications. Now these rules discourage them."
Equally discouraging is the possibility that the NCAA might vote in January to further limit pre-season practice in football and basketball and also put a limit on other, non-revenue sports, which previously could practice all year round.
"WHAT IS PROPOSED, frankly, scares the hell out of me," Reamon said. "These idiots that voted on my sport, they don't know anything."
"What difference does it matter if I start in September or October? This is ridiculous. This is absolutely absurd and. That doesn't cost any money for an event? That doesn't cost anything."
Kirkland Gates, men's tennis coach, said he cuts the NCAA had made were the result of a 2014 study.
A proposal that would prevent the gymnastics team from practicing in the fall might even be dangerous to his athletes' safety. Lockwood said.
"They just cut down the major sports, football and basketball, and then they said, "Well, we've cut back here, we must cut back over there."
"IN GYMNASTICTS, THE athlete can't go out and find the equipment, in a basketball or some other sport. He can't get a ball and shoot baskets to get into some kind of shape."
"It's going to be a safety hazard. I think this is really a tragic thing. And I don't believe it's a real cost savings. What diff between them if we have two extra months of practice?"
"THE BEST WAY TO SAVE money in athletics is to cut out all sports," he said. "The problem here is that the NCAA didn't have any real directions in what they did."
"What if an athlete gets injured? Why, it would just be pitiful."
Timmons tried to put the NCAA's actions in perspective.
"The NCAA hasn't even spelled out their goals as. So they go into a big meeting with 800 people and everybody is scrambling for directions to decide on 72 amendments.
"They didn't have sufficient time. As a group, it was obvious they didn't think about this."
MIRANDA SAID HE THOUGHT the upshot of some of these rules was the lack of sympathy the NCAA convention had for the individual athlete.
YET TALLEY SAID HE was concerned that his job search may have been initiated a little too late. Other assistant coaches, a few of whom are very involved in coaching staffs, are flooding the market.
"I don't think the head coach here (Bob Timmons) or the administrative staff objects to us doing that," Talley said. "They pretty well know what could happen."
Talley's job jeopardized by new cost-saving rules
Consequently, Talley is concerned. The mood in the Allen Field House track office is positive.
By KEN STONE
Sports Writer
Sports Writer
But instead of slowly counting the minutes until the NCAA's meeting, Talley is searching for another job. In fact, he' s requested to搭 two other large universities.
"What-a-day! What-a-day! What a BEAITIFE_day!"
Rain is pouring outside on the track. The temperature is hovering at 55 degrees. The workout instructions on the track team website say "keep your mouth closed." 440 at 65 sec, with a 90 sec, rest interval."
"It makes a man think," Talley says. "I know I've had second thoughts. I should ask."
And this crazy man strides into the locker room under the east stands of Memorial Stadium yelling in his Arkansas draw, at哭泣 his lungs, about a beautiful day it is.
On January 13, 1976, delegates from 700 NCAA member schools will meet at a special convention in St. Louis to decide whether Talley—and assistant coaches like him all over the United States—can keep their jobs.
As any member of the University of Kansas track team can tell you, the "crazy" man is Thad Talley, KU assistant track coach.
"It's pretty basic," he said. "The number one thing in athletics is the athlete."
Football and basketball staffs have already been reduced, and Talley said he didn't think the NCAA would leave coaching alone in the other, non-revenue sports.
Thad Talley may lose his job.
TALLEY LOVES TO HAVE his athletics so well that he struggles past the 328 mark of the 119.400. But no amount of shouted "what-a-days" can divert Talley's attention from what he is doing.
"You know, without the athlete, we don't have college basketball. Without the athlete we don't have the great crowds and the great enthusiasm. And when you keep taking away from the athlete, then I think you'll have some problems.
With reference to his own sport, Miranda summarized the feelings of his fellow
The realization that he might have come this way for nothing is frustrating, he said.
"ALL THE TIME I WAS trying to seek my goals. My ultimate goal is to be a head coach at a large university. And this was just another step up the ladder."
"I think all of us at some time or another have had misgivings and maybe wanted to get out of coaching." Talley said. "But what I thought is the fact that I haven't chosen to get out.
"Someone now is telling me that I'm going to have to get out. Here's something that I have spent 15 years or more preparing for, trying to get ahead, trying to do the best I can, starting off in a junior high and working up to this level of coaching.
"Now, they'll say, 'We're not forcing you to get out. You can still coach. Sure. What's wrong?'"
Wait, let me look at the image again.
It's a block of text with some crossed-out parts.
The first line has "Now, they'll say..." and "We're not forcing you to get out."
The second line says "You can still coach.".
The third line says "Sure."
Okay, I'm ready to transcribe.
"Now, they'll say, 'We're not forcing you to get out. You can still coach.' Sure. What's wrong?"
"NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN, by the vote of a hand, someone in some small school is telling me that I'm supposed to get out of coaching and into something else.
Talley would rather get out of coaching than slide back. So he plans to continue linebacking.
And if he can't find that head coaching position? What then?
"Somewhere in this world there's a job for That Talley. It may be digging ditches or in business or in something else; maybe something that I haven't even prepared for."
"I DLKE TO FEEL THAT, basically,
I'm a fighter, a competitor, a guy that
would not let something like this disturb
him," Talley said.
"But there's a job for me."
Staff Photo by DAVID CRENSHAM
Thad Talley
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