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.
Student Managers
Earlier this week, Athletics Veritas ran an article about athletic departments’ potential roles in recruiting non-athlete students to help bolster enrollment.
One of those non-athlete student groups with a connection to Division I athletics is student managers. Student managers are one of the very few, if not only, non-athlete college student groups expressly referenced in the NCAA Division I Manual.
The NCAA defines a student manager as “an individual who performs traditional managerial duties (e.g., equipment, laundry, hydration) and meets the following additional criteria:
The individual shall be a full-time undergraduate or graduate student at the institution for which he or she serves as a manager, except that during his or her final semester or quarter of a degree program, he or she may be enrolled in less than a full-time program of studies, provided he or she is carrying (for credit) the courses necessary to complete the degree requirements;
The individual may participate in limited on-court or on-field activities during practice (e.g., assist with drills, throw batting practice) or competition (e.g., assist with warm-up activities) involving student-athletes on a regular basis;
The individual shall not provide instruction to student-athletes;
The individual shall not participate in countable athletically related activities (e.g., practice player) except as permitted in Bylaw 11.01.7-(b); and
In baseball, the individual shall forfeit any remaining eligibility in the sport at the institution at which the individual serves as a manager.”
There are a few rationales for needing to legislate who a manager is and what he or she can do.
First, Division I has limits on the number of individuals permitted to coach tactics, technique, and in-game strategy to student-athletes. As such, there needed to be a prohibition against hiding coaches under the manager role. This is why managerial duties are spelled out -- leaving only “traditional” functions such as hydration, towel duty, prepping equipment for practice and so on.
Second, to counteract those with ulterior motives regarding who is actually filling the manager role, managers need to be full-time undergraduate or graduate students. The NCAA rule not only requires them to be students, but students at your institution. The NCAA made a recent legislative edit to make that point clear to the membership.
Third, the definition spells out managerial duties, which implies that student managers are expected to perform these traditional managerial functions. Coaches, for example, cannot hide an ineligible student-athlete on their bench under the guise of being a manager solely as a means to enable the ineligible student-athlete to travel with the team to away games. By rule, ineligible student-athletes may not travel on the road when sitting out of competition.
Lastly, in 2010, Division I adopted the baseball-specific restriction in the student manager definition. That provision states that individuals must forfeit their remaining eligibility in baseball if they also become a manager.
For baseball, issues affecting a manager’s role can include the blurry lines between coaching duties and simply throwing batting practice and other on-field interactions a baseball staff member may have with student-athletes.
More acutely, though, baseball is the one Division I sport with a legislated roster limit; 35 student-athletes is the max a Division I institution may carry on an active roster during baseball's spring championship season.
The rationale for compelling student managers to forfeit baseball eligibility “is designed to address the potential abuse for tryouts because of the roster limit in baseball and the concern of stockpiling student-athletes (under guise of being a manager for a semester or longer). … The creation of a separate definition for this position will be helpful in outlining and distinguishing their duties from other positions in the legislation.”
As universities and their athletics departments consider student enrollment projections for 2020-21, it is helpful to know how deliberate NCAA rules can be for students enrolled at Division I institutions who are not even representing their institution in competition.
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.
