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Nebraskan
NCAA rule vs. state law struggle wanes
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
A1 Papik is breathing a little
easier these days when he gets
a call from the NCAA.
But he admits that anxiety may set
in again next fall.
Papik, assistant athletic director
for administration and compliance,
was concerned earlier this fall about a
new stale law that could have put the
Nebraska athletic department in the
awkward position of having to choose
between NCAA regulations and state
law.
The confusion arose w ith the adop
tion of LB69, a state law requiring the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln to
allow all athletes eligible for need
based aid to receive the full amount.
The bill went into effect June 1.
NCAA regulations prohibit uni
versities from awarding more than 92
football scholarships a year. All need
based aid, except Pell Grants and
Redshirts could face same choice next season
student loans, counts as an athletic
scholarship.
Papik said 15 Husker football play
ers— eight of whom are freshmen —
were eligible for need-based aid this
fall. Any players who accepted aid
and competed on the varsity level
would have broken NCAA rules.
However, Nebraska coaches would
be prohibited under LB69 from deny
ing athletes playing time to avoid
NCAA sanctions.
Papik said Tuesday that all eight
freshman players had redshirted this
season, and five of the other players
eligible for aid declined to accept it.
The remaining two players already
have accepted aid, he said, and will
present problems for the athletic de
partment only if they compete in a
varsity game. He declined to name the
players, but said they had not played
in the first two games.
-44
If they end up playing
sometime down the .
road, we’ll have to
report the violation to
the NCAA.
Papik
assistant athletic director
--ff -
“We* II just have to monitor it from
game to game," Papik said. “If they
end up playing sometime down the
road, we’ll have to report the viola
tion to the NCAA.”
Steve Morgan, associate execu
tive director of the NCAA, said that il
the players under question partici
pated in a varsity game, the likely
result would be to remove two schol
arships from Nebraska’s scholarship
allotment next season.
The NCAA will cut the number of
football scholarships allowed from 92
to 88 next year. Therefore, the Husk
ers would be allowed 86 scholarships
if the players in question played this
season.
Papik said the same problemscould
arise for the Nebraska athletic depart
ment next season, when the eight
redshirted freshmen were eligible to
play.
The confusion over athletic schol
arships and financial aid is nothing
new to Papik. Every year, the athletic
department deals with the same prob
lem, usually with 15 to 20 athletes, he
said. But this year, the problem was
'heightened by LB69’s passage, he
said.
Before LB69, coaches told the play
ers that accepting financial aid other
than Pel I Grants or student loans might
have meant not playing.
“But now, the law won’t allow
that, and we have to deal with it in
other ways,” he said. “We’ve informed
all the athletes and their parents that
we won’t prevent anyone from play
ing if they accept the financial aid
they’re entitled to.
“But we also told them what ac
cepting aid might mean to the pro
gram (losing scholarships).”
Papik said he was pleased that
what he thought would be a major
incident had turned out to be a minor
matter.
“It was a tremendous hassle, with
a lot of red lapc to cut through,” he
said. “But we were happy that what
we thought was going to be a serious
problem didn’t end up affecting ev
erybody.
“But next year, it will probably
happen again.”
^ . . . . . Robin Trimarchi/DN
Cracking the books
Brooke Bale, a junior music theater major, finds shade in the sculpture “Willy,” by Tony Smith, while studying on a summary
T uesday afternoon.
Service
provides
mediation
of disputes \
By Susie Arth
Senior Reporter ^
Roommate disputes, romance
problems and divorce settle
ments can all be solved with
out tears or raised voices at a new
service in the Women’s Center, an
official said.
Melanie Reese, volunteer coordi
nator of the new Mediation Program,
said the service would focus on pro
moting communication between dis
puting parties.
Reese said she believed the root of
many problems was a failure to ex
press and listen to each other’s per
sonal needs and opinions.
The Mediation Program will pro
vide a neutral selling so people can
feel comfortable talking about their
needs and opinions, she said.
“(The program) offers a safe place
for people who arc in conflict to come
and work out their problems with a
third party,” she sard.
Reese said it was her responsibility
to enforce certain ground rulcsduring
mediation. The rules include no yell
ing, no name-calling and no blaming.
Reese, who is working on a doctor
ate in speech communication, said
she would oversee the cases and en
See MEDIATION on 6
NU family leave plan delayed, but moving
By Alan Phelps
Senior Editor
Politicians wrangling in Wash
ington, D.C., over the pro
posed Family and Medical
Leave Act won’t affect family leave
plans at the University of Nebraska,
an official said.
“If you wail for them, you might
wail forever,” said John Russell, NU
director of personnel and assistant
vice president for administration.
President Bush has promised to
veto this year’s congressional effort,
as he did a similar bill in 1990.
Russell said university officials
slowed the pace of a 1990 investiga
tion into a possible family leave plan
in anticipation of a federal mandate.
- *4
We run a policy like this through every group imaginable. It’s just taken a
long time to get through the hurdles.
— Russell
director of personnel and
--99 -
Bui this lime around, he said, ihc
leave proposal moving through uni
versity circles wouldn’tbc abandoned,
although it is behind schedule.
Russell said last spring that the
plan would be in place Tor the Tall
semester, but both he and Joe Rowson,
NU director of public affairs, said
some details still had to be looked at
before the idea was presented to the
NU Board of Regents “in the near
future.”
“Legal terms, things like that, need
to be ironed out,” Rowson said. “At
torneys, everybody and their brother”
must look at the proposal, he said.
Russell said different university
groups looking at the plan had ques
tions about how the plan would work
in different situations.
Such examination is not unusual,
he said.
“We run a policy like this through
every group imaginable,” he said. “It’s
just taken a long lime to gel through
the hurdles.”
Rowson said no significant changes
had been made in the proposed policy
during discussions over the summer.
Onlyafcw technical language changes
were made, he said.
Fam i ly leave is now determ ined by
individual departments. The proposal
would give all university employees
the right to lake an unpaid family
leave of absence in the event of prob
Icms with the health of a child, parent
or spouse; the birth or adoption of a
child; or a death in the immediate
family, Rowson said.
Employees could be granted up to
12 weeks in a consecutive 24-month
period of family leave, Russell said.
Such leave could be taken in conjunc
lioq with sick, disability or vacation
leave.
However, he said, departments
would have the right to negotiate terms
of the leave with employees if the
leave would cause undue hardship on
the department.
The family leave proposal origi
nally was among recommendations
made by a regents’ committee look
ing into gender equity issues, Rowson
said.