Term-in-ology. College athletics is not immune to industry acronyms or opaque concepts that can throw off the scent. With that in mind, Term-in-ology seeks each week to educate our readers on key NCAA definitions, terms of art, and policies and procedures encapsulating modern-day college athletics. If you are connected in any way to higher education, the business of education, or simply a college sports fan---this weekly morsel can help you decode college sports.
Summer Access
As Division I institutions map out potential reintegration and socialization plans for returning to campus, student-athletes and coaches from three Division I sports would have been planning a return for summer athletic activity (sometimes referred to as summer access) anyway. Those three sports are women’s basketball, men’s basketball, and football.
For men’s and women’s basketball, student-athletes may participate in up to eight hours per week of required weight training, conditioning and skill-related instruction during an eight-week summer period. The eight weeks do not need to be consecutive. Participation in such activities shall be limited to a maximum of eight hours per week with not more than four hours per week spent on skill-related instruction.
Football has an identical summer access rule (e.g., eight weeks with max of 8 hours per week) as the basketballs except that football is limited to not more than two-hours of film review within their eight hours each summer access week.
There is an academic component underlying a student-athlete’s opportunity to participate in summer access across these three sports. As a starting point, student-athletes have been required to be enrolled in summer school in order to participate in summer access. A student-athlete who is enrolled in at least three degree-applicable credit hours in one summer term that is fewer than eight weeks in duration may engage in required weight-training, conditioning and skill-related instruction for up to eight weeks (not required to be consecutive weeks). Additionally, summer school enrollment requirements can be exempted if a student-athlete has achieved a certain number of credits along with a minimum grade-point average of 2.200.
These three sports’ summer access training periods were a compromise crafted years ago to allow coaches more coaching and conditioning access during the summer months provided student-athletes were also advancing toward their degrees including the requirement to be enrolled in summer school concurrently with summer access activity.
Earlier this month, the NCAA Division I Council Coordination Committee loosened the academic moorings to summer access even further for summer 2020 by declaring that basketball and football student-athletes do not need to be enrolled in summer school, regardless of the credits or grade-point average levels, in order to participate in summer access weeks.
And earlier this week, the same Committee opted to not allow summer access in these three sports to occur in June in light of pandemic considerations, although the Committee is permitting voluntary activities to occur on-campus per institutional and local/state re-opening guidelines. The Committee will determine in the coming weeks as to whether a modified (likely shortened) summer access period could occur in July.
Although summer 2020 should prove to be unpredictable and unprecedented in many ways as far as college sports go, understanding ‘summer access’ will help campus leaders better understand what team activities would have looked like for these three high-profile sports during a normal summer. For many tied to the basketballs and football, utilizing even a portion of those eight weeks this summer would be seen as a bonus.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
