Scouting Ban Upheld Despite Majority Opposition, Low Turnout
The override of NCAA Proposal RWG–11–3-B, which bans in-person scouting of future opponents, failed on Friday. Voting had been running since Monday. The proposal needed a 62.5% (5/8ths) majority of schools voting but could not quite get there:
Of the schools and conferences voting, 55.2 percent (154) voted to override the legislation. A 62.5 percent majority of those voting is required to override legislation. Only 279 of the 375 eligible Division I schools and conferences voted to support or defeat the override.
The 154 schools voting in favor of the override (thus against the proposal) were 21 short given the number of schools voting. Just adding opponents to the proposal would have required another 55 schools (of the 94 which didn’t vote) to make the override successful. The low turnout should have helped the override, but those numbers suggest that the override had little chance of success.
Some limited scouting is still permitted. And the change unifies the rule across all sports. Previously some sports permitted in-person scouting (lacrosse for instance) and some sports banned it entirely (football, basketball, and volleyball). The rest of the sports allowed coaches to scout future opponents in person, but only if the coach paid all the expenses for the scouting trip out of his or her pocket. This not only cleans up the rule book, but eliminates a host of confusing interpretations on the old scouting rules.
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