UWC-Athletic and Intramural Committee Minutes
December 11, 2007

PRESENT: Jim Arnzen, Nancy Bentley, Phil Blau, Steve Rader, Brenda Renfroe Jim Settle, Bob Trusz, and John Valentine.

Minutes of Meeting – Phil Blau distributed minutes from the committee’s last meeting. After review, the minutes were approved

1.Ex officio members voting
Since on all committees ex officio member are full and voting members, this committee no longer has a faculty majority. John said when the committee was formed, it was a point of emphasis to have a faculty majority to issue athletic participation (particularly regarding scheduling) does not compromise academic goals.

Jim Settle said the institution has little impact on the conference schedule as it relates to missed classes and by board policy it is the vice president of student affair who excuses athletes who missing class because of participation.

Steve mention that Jim Settle was right and that on semester the conference and regional tournaments tend to have less of an impact that they did on quarters.

John moved that Ex-officio members of the A&I Committee will not vote on issues that the majority of faculty at an A&I Meeting consider to have a direct impact on the academic performance of students (e.g., eligibility standards, games played during exam period, number of games played that take students out of class over the course of a season, etc.).

Rationale: To provide the faculty on the committee with the opportunity to have the majority of the votes on issues that have a direct impact on the academic performance of students.
Nancy seconded.

Jim Arnzen said he did not know why the ex officio members can vote but suspected it was so all committees would have a uniform policy on the ex officio member and pointed out that academic issues come up in all the committees, which contain ex officio members.

Phil mentioned that in terms of eligibility there are only the national rules, which dictate that the faculty athlete representative had the final say, so he was not sure how the AIC would become involved in eligibility issues.

By a vote of 5 in favor, 0 opposed, and 3 abstaining, the motion passed.

Jim Arnzen also noted the in the past the committee just makes recommendation, so a committee policy on ex-officio members and academic issues is not binding and would ultimately be decided by the president.

Also on the subject of committee membership, John wondered if there was any regulation of the SGA that one of the student members must be a female, while the other would be a male.

2. Club Sports:
Currently club sports are generally operated out of the student affairs’ budget. But it seems the expertise would be more in athletics.

Steve also mentioned a shift in the paradigm: in the past club sports were thought to be a trial run for a future intramural sports; now they are also an factor in making residential life more attractive as part of enrollment management.

John asked what do schools that run both intramurals and club sports.
Steve said larger schools often keep intramurals and club sports separate

Jim Arnzen said the recreational use of the athletic center is not well funded and that building space needs to be more controlled.

3. Tiered Sports
Jim Arnzen introduced a rough draft on the classification of sports into three tiers of major, intermediate, and minor. Our intercollegiate teams broke into the following tiers: Major: men’s and women’s basketball; Intermediate: baseball, softball, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball; Minor Sports: women’s tennis, men’s golf, men’s and women’s cross country. The salaries of the coach would be $14,000, $12,500, and $10,100 respectively. The length of the “in season” would be 24 weeks, 22 weeks, and 18 weeks, respectively. The scholarships as a percentage of the NAIA maximum would be 100%, 20$, and 20%. These scholarships would be in addition to any need based and merit financial aid, such as Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG) program.

A full scholarship for a resident this year was $18,500.

The idea is not to cut coaches’ salaries but to raise those in the some sports.
Bob Trusz said it could be helpful to see the current vs. proposed in the amount of dollars.
FLS increased the salaries of our coaches.

John asked about the effect of roster size. Jim Arnzen replied that it does not have a big effect.
A rough calculation by Steve Rader say currently with 2 out of 8 scholarships volleyball were slightly above the 20% scholarship (2 out of 8scholarships).
 

UWC-Athletic and Intramural Committee Minutes
November 13, 2007

PRESENT: Jim Arnzen, Nancy Bentley, Phil Blau, Cindy Hopkins, Krista Jarrell, Steve Rader, Bob Trusz, and John Valentine.

Minutes of Meeting – Phil Blau distributed minutes from the committee’s last meeting. After review, Phil moved to approve the minutes as published and Steve Rader seconded the motion. Upon a vote, the motion passed.

Discussion moved to faculty being able to have majority vote on academic issues. John Valentine said that for a decade or more, this committee had a faculty majority, but that is not currently the case. The consensus among committee members present was that as part of committee procedure, the ex-officio members would be non-voting in issues of an academic nature. John said he will think about this issue for a future motion.

Role of AIC with club sports – Phil said John suggested the committee discuss its role, if any, in club sports. One question raised was if the club has no intention of becoming a varsity sport, would this committee have anything to do with it. John said one issue would be funding as some clubs could be sustaining as a clubs but clubs sports such as roller hockey are costly and have to raise their own funds. Jim Arnzen said intramurals are different and funded from an intramural account. Jim said we have partially funded some club sports, such as men’s tennis, roller hockey, volleyball club (non-competitive) in the past and would probably continue to. He said sometimes in the past the Athletic Budget has kicked in for special events. There is no line item in the budget for club sports and Steve suggested maybe it is time for such a budget. Jim said it is difficult to explain why some club sports are under AIC realm and some are not. Jim said initially clubs sports were thought of as dry runs that may lead to varsity sports and Steve said they don’t have to be a pathway to varsity sports, but some are just great activity for students and suggested a budget be established for club sports. Discussion moved to establishing criteria for club sports to reach funded status and Jim said he would try to come up with something for the next meeting.

Tiered sports – Phil said one of our tasks this year is to try to establish some logic behind tiered sports. There are currently 3 tiers and the committee needs to be able to explain why we have 3 tiers. Jim said this is an annual agenda item and there is no logic to how the sports are now tiered and the committee needs to establish criteria for placing sports into tiers. Jim distributed several handouts which will be part of the minutes. After much discussion, criteria suggestions were contribution to student life; financial contributions to the university; coaching responsibilities to run the sport; roster size.

Phil ended the meeting due to time constraints and said we will try to have a meeting in December.
 

  UWC-Athletic and Intramural Committee Minutes
September 11, 2007

PRESENT: Jim Arnzen, Phil Blau, Nancy Bentley, Cindy Hopkins, Steve Rader, Brenda Renfroe, and Jim Settle

Phil Blau opened the meeting by asking everyone to review the minutes from the last meeting. Phil said this year’s agenda will include looking at tiered sports, but the subject of today’s meeting is for the committee to review the direct qualification recommendations for championship play in all sports for NAIA championships. After a review of the minutes, Nancy moved to approve the minutes as published with Phil Blau seconding the motion . Upon a vote, the motion passed.

DIRECT QUALIFICATION – Jim Arnzen explained to the committee the direct qualification plan for sports teams in post season play approved in September 2006 by the NAIA Council of Presidents and effective with 2008 fall NAIA championships. Jim said as far as all the changes in NAIA so far, this is the most thought out and included the most input. It will also make things easier on administrative work in the national office. Jim said they are trying to reduce the redundancy of play, and on our campus, chances are we won’t see a noticeable difference in the direct qualification model they are adopting.

Steve Rader said it appears the rich are getting richer and the people who are going to make it anyway will be there, but it cuts out the level of competition that gets a team there that might not otherwise have a chance to compete in post season play. Dr. Settle said he thinks it is an interesting move by NAIA and thinks it will push some teams into the NCAA. Phil said he senses the committee does not whole heartedly endorse this move. Steve Rader said he can’t see how this benefits the majority of NAIA schools – only a limited number of schools. It takes the dream away from the smaller schools. Nancy commented she would think that would also hurt recruiting. Dr. Settle said he thinks they are trying to elevate the idea you are getting better competition and Steve Rader replied he doesn’t doubt that but he thought NAIA was about getting more participation and this new proposal seems kind of elitist. This eliminates the chance to go to regional competition. There will still be at large teams that go to post season play, but opportunities to earn those at large spots are reduced.

The Athletic and Intramural Committee at Shawnee State University does not enthusiastically support Direct Qualification Proposal.

The meeting adjourned.
 

 UWC-Athletic and Intramural Committee Minutes
June 4, 2007

PRESENT: Jim Arnzen, Phil Blau, Cindy Hopkins, Steve Rader, Brenda Renfroe, Jim Settle and John Valentine

Phil began the meeting by distributing minutes of the last meeting asking everyone to take a minute to review. Brenda Renfroe moved to approve the minutes as published with Steve Rader seconding the motion. Upon a vote, the motion passed.

PROPOSALS FOR NEW SPORTS - Discussion took place about the Procedures for Starting New Intercollegiate Sports with conversation centering around whether to send a proposal to the President if the AIC doesn’t recommend the proposal. New proposals are submitted to the athletic director who submits proposals with recommendations to the AIC. AIC reviews proposals and submits recommended proposals to the president. The group felt there was no need to send non-recommended proposals to the president. She gets minutes of the meetings and Dr. Settle also said he will keep her informed. John Valentine expressed concern about veto power given to the athletic director if everything has to originate with the athletic director and distributed suggested rewording of the procedures. Dr. Settle suggested adding a #12 under Criteria That Must be Included in the Proposal that stated, “Does the athletic director support this proposal.” After lengthy discussion and upon a friendly amendment by Dr. Settle, it was decided to make the following changes, which are italicized:

There were no objections from the committee to these changes. The policy is included in the minutes.

TIERED SPORTS – Phil said the last thing we will discuss this year and think about over the summer is tiered sports. Jim Arnzen distributed information about all the sports including roster size, classification, budget, coaching salary, scholarship budget and length of practice season. Phil asked Jim Arnzen what he thinks of tiers, and Jim said he would like to see a logical thought process about how number of scholarships and coaching salaries are arrived at so when people ask about these things, he has an answer for them. There was a salary range for major, intermediate and minor sports, but when the Fair Labor Standards Act became effective, some practice seasons had to be cut and some coaching salaries increased. Jim said this just means there’s a minimum wage for coaches, that we can recognize some sports require more time than others and pay those more, but there is a minimum wage for lesser sports. Discussion moved to how many mandates are going to be put on coaches such as how much practice time, how many games have to be played, budgets, etc. Jim Arnzen will prepare recommendations for committee consideration when meetings resume fall semester 2007.

Procedure for Starting New Intercollegiate Sports
Recommended by the Athletic and Intramural Committee

1. Athletic Director submits all proposals to Vice President for Student Affairs.

2. Athletic Director and Vice President for Student Affairs present proposal with recommendations to Athletic Intramural Committee (AIC) for review.

3. Upon consideration by committee proposal shall be forwarded to the president with recommendations of the committee and athletic director clearly noted.

1. In what year would the new sport begin Intercollegiate play?

2. Does our current conference affiliation sponsor this sport and how difficult would scheduling be?

3. How will the addition of the sport impact Title IX compliance?

4. Would the new sport be classified as major, minor, or intermediate under the Shawnee State University Classification of Sports?

5. What is the proposed annual budget?

6. What is the projected start up cost?

7. Does Shawnee State University have a quality facility that would accommodate the practice needs and competition needs of a new sport? Is a quality facility available for lease? Is the facility available at a time that our coaches and students are available?

8. Is the new sport going to be staffed with part-time or full-time coaches? Will the addition of student/athletes and practices/games put enough of an increase in workload to current staff that additional support staff need hired?

9. What is the projected roster size?

10. Will exiting sports lose funding or staffing?

11. Will adding the new sport fit the mission statement for athletics?

Athletic and Intramural Committee Minutes
May 16, 2007

PRESENT: Jim Arnzen, Nancy Bentley, Phil Blau, Kelly Hatas, Cindy Hopkins, Kristi Jarrell, Brenda Renfroe Jim Settle and Bob Trusz.

Phil opened the meeting stating that Steve Rader and John Valentine might not be here and thanked Cindy for offering to take meeting minutes. Phil then asked everyone to take a few minutes to read the minutes of the last meeting. Bob Trusz moved to approve the minutes as published. There was no second or vote for the motion.

NEW SPORTS - Phil asked for any comments, changes, endorsements or recommendations for the procedure for starting new sports. Bob said they seem to be reasonable steps. Jim Arnzen said there may be a time when a proposal is submitted by someone other than the athletic director which was the case with football several years ago. Bob Trusz said he thinks the athletic director needs to be onboard when new sports are proposed. Jim Settle said the athletic director certainly needs to be involved and he won’t support changes without athletic director involvement. After discussion, consensus was that wherever a proposed addition and/or change to sports programs originate, it should go through the athletic director first. Upon a question from Kelly regarding item #3, she asked if this group turns a request down, will the request still go to the President? Jim Settle suggested putting in item #3, after proposal, “and recommendation”. Phil asked for any further changes; there being none Phil moved the AIC recommends this procedure for starting new intercollegiate sports and Bob seconded the motion. Upon a vote, the motion passed.

DRUG TESTING – Phil opened the discussion by talking about how the committee should vote on the issue of continuing the drug testing of student athletes. The question was should voting be conducted by secret ballot, by show of hands, or by email. Jim Settle told the committee he is working with 2 students now who have had several drug violations and are at the point of being suspended from the University. These students are being allowed to stay as long as they submit to random drug testing and they have to pay for the testing. This has been handled through the University’s regular disciplinary process, so if anyone suspects an athlete is on drugs, it could be handled through the University’s regular disciplinary process rather than testing all athletes. Kelly reported that overall the students are not in support of this policy. Jim Settle said he has not heard anyone on this committee in support of the drug testing program and suggested this group propose the elimination of the drug testing pilot program for student athletes and have no separate student athlete drug testing program. Bob made Jim Settle’s suggestion a formal motion and Phil seconded the motion. The committee decided to conduct an email vote so the entire committee would have an opportunity to vote on this issue.

The motion passed by an email vote of 8 in favor and 1 against.

OTHER BUSINESS – Phil said one thing to look at in the future along the lines of procedures for new sports are tiered sports and what sports should be tiered. Jim Arnzen gave an overview of tiered sports stating the sports programs are based on no particular criteria and the head coaching pay and scholarships are the only things tied to those programs. There has been an ongoing discussion of why we have tiers at all. Jim said said tiers came about because the head basketball coach gets paid more than other coaches and the basketball program has significantly more scholarship money than other programs. Why we have tiers is the million dollar question. Jim Settle suggested Jim Arnzen make a grid stating what sport is what tier as the group needs some information to look at. Jim Settle also said at some point if we are going to build sports we are going to have to look at a student activity fee for athletics, and we won’t get beyond part-time coaches if we don’t have this fee. Kelly asked what happened to the track and field proposal and Phil explained they don’t need to have varsity status to compete; we can just send athletes to competitions.

Phil said there will be one more meeting before the end of the year, probably the first week of June.

Procedure for Starting New Intercollegiate Sports

Recommended by the Athletic and Intramural Committee

1. Athletic Director submits all proposals to Vice President for Student Affairs.

2. Athletic Director and Vice President for Student Affairs present proposal with recommendations to Athletic Intramural Committee (AIC) for review.

3. Upon consideration by committee proposal shall be forwarded to the president with recommendations of the committee and athletic director clearly noted.

Criteria that must be included in the proposal:

1. In what year would the new sport begin Intercollegiate play?

2. Does our current conference affiliation sponsor this sport and how difficult would scheduling be?

3. How will the addition of the sport impact Title IX compliance?

4. Would the new sport be classified as major, minor, or intermediate under the Shawnee State University Classification of Sports?

5. What is the proposed annual budget?

6. What is the projected start up cost?

7. Does Shawnee State University have a quality facility that would accommodate the practice needs and competition needs of a new sport? Is a quality facility available for lease? Is the facility available at a time that our coaches and students are available?

8. Is the new sport going to be staffed with part-time or full-time coaches? Will the addition of student/athletes and practices/games put enough of an increase in workload to current staff that additional support staff need hired?

9. What is the projected roster size?

10. Will exiting sports lose funding or staffing?

11. Will adding the new sport fit the mission statement for athletics?

Minutes of Athletic and Intramural Committee
April 30, 2007

Present: Phil Blau, John Valentine, Jim Arnzen, Cindy Hopkins, Steven Rader, Bob Trusz, Kelly Hatas,

i. Approval of the minutes

After it was determined that there was a quorum, the minutes from the meeting of April 16, 2007 were approved.

ii. Drug Testing

Kelly Hatas was asked for her comments. Her own personal opinion was still undetermined at this point; she could see both sides and that her opinion might depend on the purpose of testing. If it is for a safe, drug free campus why should only the athletes be tested? If it is only for ensure there is no competitive advantage due to performance enhancing drugs, then marijuana should not be tested for.

Steve Rader pointed out that NCAA mandates testing for both performance enhancing and street drugs, so there athletes are singled out for testing. The NAIA does not mandate testing, likely because of the costs.

The committee will need to vote on whether or not to continue testing shortly, and if testing is continued, about whether or not to test for marijuana and other street drugs. Jim Arnzen pointed out that at some point letters about the policy will be sent to students. Any recommendations from this committee would likely need to go through the Vice President of Student Affairs and then to the President. Thus, there will need to be a vote in about three weeks.

By email Jim Arnzen would provide the summary statistics about the test as well as the cost of testing.

Phil gave an unofficial summary that so far there was 1 positive marijuana test from about fifty something tests, and the athlete refused counseling and quit the team.

When asked, Jim Arnzen sent the money for testing was additional money allocated to his budget.

Bob recommended the vote be cast by paper ballot.

iii. New Sports

Cindy Hopkins asked about part time coaches and the need for more full time coaches.

Jim Arnzen said it depends on the sports. In softball and baseball, the need for a full time coach is more acute. He also personally felt we should not start new sports until full time staffing in intermediate sports is achieved. For example, track and field would require supervision of about 25 males and 25 female; that would be a hard task for a part time coach.

We need to look at an institutional commitment to more full time positions: what models are comparable schools using. Can positions be created where half the job would be coaching and the other half teaching or administrative? That way coaches would have a more regular and permanent presence on campus.

Jim Arnzen distributed a draft for a policy about adding new sports. We asked committee members to “get out their red pens” and comment on it for the next meeting.

Minutes of Athletic and Intramural Committee
  April 16, 2007

Present: Phil Blau, John Valentine, Brenda Renfroe, Nancy Bentley, Jim Settle, Jim Arnzen, Cindy Hopkins, Steven Rader, Bob Trusz, Kelly Hatas, Kristi Jarrell

i. Approval of the minutes

The minutes from the meeting of March 13, 2007 were approved. Also, new member Cindy Hopkins was welcomed.

ii. Procedure for adding a new varsity sport.

Phil withdrew his motion from the last meeting about giving the track club varsity status to allow competition in the conference championships.

Phil passed out some notes of what to look at when considering a new varsity sport (which were emailed to the committee) that he, John, and Steve worked on over the break.

Bob Trusz pointed out that the committee is not a policy-making body. What exactly is the role of the committee; it should consider the recommendation of the athletic department and student affairs.

Brenda said that last year a charge from the President was to set criterion for adopting new sports.

Phil confirmed that a letter from the President asked the committee to look at, in advance of consideration, criterion that should be met for designating a new varsity sport or re-designating an existing club sport to varsity.

Jim Settle felt an appropriate role for the committee is participation in the review of athletic policy.

Steve said that several years ago when the addition of four new varsity sports was proposed, one of the problems was there was no guidelines for adding new sports.

Changing committee membership in the makes it hard to get “in the loop” of athletics enough to be constructing athletic policy.

Jim also said the situation of the track club, which help generate this discussion about guidelines for adding new sports, was unique, because individual athletes, as long as eligible was run for them, can compete in the conference championships without the need of elevating the entire team to varsity status.

It was decided that the athletic director should make a list of the criterion to present to the committee for possible recommendation.

Jim Settle asked the students, who were leaving to attend a 9:00 meeting, about the drug testing policy.

Kristi did not really see the point of singling out from the entire university community only the athletes for drug testing, though testing for performance enhancing drugs that could provide a competitive advantage.

The committee looks forward to hearing more from its student members as the new drug policy is further evaluated and refined.

iii. Drug Testing

A revised policy with some revisions (including a statement as to why athletes are drug tested) made by Jim Arnzen and Jim Settle, was distributed to the committee.

Jim Arnzen summarized, saying there were varied results of the testing. Likely, some likely have changed their behavior, some have not, and some have tried to the beat the system. Overall, a student athlete here does not believe that he or she will be tested; too much of the procedure (such as the number tested) is known by the athletes.

Jim Arnzen mentioned a drug testing survey was an idea a speaker on drug testing policies mentioned at a session the NAIA national convention. He thought the speaker would be willing to provide some input.

There are more expensive tests for masking compounds as well. Phil noted that steroids were added to the list of substances tested, which has already added to the cost of testing.

Jim Settle there will likely be a summary poll of the committee about continuing and modifying testing.

The next meeting was scheduled for 8:15 am on Monday April 30.

Charge of the athletic and intramural committee:
Recommend the establishment of a well-balanced program of intercollegiate and intramural programs and activities at Shawnee State University. The general responsibilities shall include making recommendations of the development and review of policies and budgets.

Minutes of Athletic and Intramural Committee
March 13, 2007

Present: Phil Blau, John Valentine, Brenda Renfroe, Nancy Bentley, Jim Settle, Jim Arnzen

Guest: Eric Putnam

i.  Approval of the minutes

The minutes from the meeting of February 6, 2007 were approved.

ii. New Vice President of Student Affairs.

The committee welcomed Jim Settle, who clearly stated his commitment to having actions done openly

iii. Track Proposal;

Eric Putnam, coach of the cross country team as well as the track club distributed a proposal for track and field at Shawnee and then highlighted some of the ideas in its.

The is no indoor track championship in the American Mideast Conference

There is a new NAIA limit of 8 cross country meets; a varsity track would give members of this team more opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics. There would be more additional uniforms but no scholarships. Initially the team would be the same cohort of cross runners who are on the track club.

Some concern was expressed about if the “tightening of the belt” for the cross country team would take away from the team. Eric felt that by careful fiscal management that would not have to be the case.

Nancy wanted to know if admissions noted applications who expressed interest in track.

John asked about the possibility of doing track fully with planning and funds

Phil made a motion that the athletic and intramural committee recommends allowing club track to participate in the AMC championship and, if they qualify, the nationals, while the option of adding a formal track and field team be studied and investigated.

Nancy seconded the motion.

The vote was 4 in favor of the motion. The voting membership has 8 members currently plus one vacant position. Phil said he would forward the proposal and the motion to the rest of the committee to finish the vote through email.

iii. Drug Testing

The athletic director informed the committee that there have be no new positive drug tests; so far, only 1 out of 39 tests was positive (for marijuana).

That student chose to quit the team rather than attend a counseling session. Phil thought that result was not the desired outcome the policy hoped to obtain.

Jim Settle was curious about the testing process and the possibility that there might be a 7-10 day time frame between when an athlete is informed and when the athlete is tested.

There was some discussion about why we test our athletes.

There is a public relations aspect of representing our school in an athletic competition.

John pointed out that the part of the armed services’ motivation for testing for marijuana is to see the demonstration of self discipline.

Jim Settle thought a main reason for drug testing was that the university is responsible for and cares about its students and will like to intervene and help when appropriate.

Jim Settle and Jim Arnzen planned to meet and draft a statement as to why the university has a drug testing policy for its students. This document could be made available for athletes and their parents.

Minutes Athletic and Intramural Committee
February 6, 2007

Present: Phil Blau, John Valentine, Brenda Renfroe, Nancy Bentley, Kristi Jarrell, Kelly Hattas, Jim Arnzen

i. Approval of Minutes and Introduction

The minutes of October 25, 2007 were approved.

Tracy Conn can no longer serve on the committee, since she has moved to an administration support staff position. The governance of the hourly workers will appoint a member to replace her.

ii. Minimum Roster Sizes:

It was noted that some of the minimum roster sizes would be hard to achieve, such as in women’s soccer.

The minimum roster size was more a guideline, which the athletic director can give to coaches. Recruitment is not part of the evaluation of coaches, so there is no automatic penalty if a coach cannot meet a minimum roster size.

The idea behind them is to give a goal that can hopefully lead coaches to attract a few student athletes who would not otherwise attend Shawnee State.

It was noted that a coach might prefer a smaller roster is a coach can feel he or she can do more for fewer athletes.

The lack of maximum roster sizes would probably mean the minimum roster would have small if any effect on title IX compliance.

The committee was reminded that the resolution recommending the minimum roster sizes was already approved by the committee at the last meeting

iii. Drug Testing

It was pointed out that there are marijuana test that would only test for usage in the last 24-48 hours, but the standard test we use would detect usage in about the prior 30-45 days.

There were about 19 tests in the fall, 1 of which was positive for marijuana. There were about 10 tests in the winter, none of which were positive.

A first test requires counseling but having a counselor does not want to counselor person who does not want to be in counseling, so the forced counseling is far from idea.

The committee was curious about what exactly was the nature of the counseling, as well as the process of a counselor signing off on a client. It is apparent to the committee that this area of the policy needs to work some more details.

Since marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug, it might be removed from the list of tested substances for or the penalty for a positive test might be different from that with a positive test for a performance enhancing drug.

It was pointed out that since marijuana likely would take away from performance and some, though not all, athletes are on scholarship, the university should test for it. 

There is certainly precedence for only testing athletes at the collegiate level.

It was noted that that is true for any student on scholarship. Part of the athletic mission statements is that athletes are treated no different from the other students.

iv. New vice president of Student Affairs

In the middle of this month, Jim Settle will take over from the retiring Larry Magnus. The committee will meet shortly after he takes over. When he attends, committee members were asked to think about questions and comments for him.

v. Club Sports.

The status of club sports was brought up.

There is still men’s club tennis but it is not housed in athletics.

There is men’s and women’s track and field but at present there are no plans to add it as a varsity sport, so its participants are essentially members of the cross country teams. It would take a plan to add it to expand its membership beyond this.

Track and field as a varsity could potentially add about 50 students, which could help enrollment management by expanding our base of students.

It was recalled that the main reason the committee did not recommend adding varsity sports the last time was to focus on trying to strengthen some of our existing sports before we add new sports.

Minutes Athletic and Intramural Committee
October 25 2006

Present: Jim Arnzen, Bob Trusz, Phil Blau, Tracy Conn, Brenda Renfroe, John Valentine, Nancy Murray

i. Approval of the minutes

The minutes of September 20, 2006 were reviewed, corrected, and approved.

ii. John Valentine was welcomed to the committee.

iii. Update on Drug Testing Policy

All of our athletes have signed to the form sent to them and names have been submitted to SOMC, where a list of testing days will be generated.

John Valentine asked about the list of substances being test for and what common products or prescriptions might trigger a positive test. He was told the athlete submits a list of medications taken.

John Valentine also pointed out that, unlike the case with the other substances, marijuana could result in a positive test that is administered a month after its last use.

iv. Roster Size

The committee recommended that the following minimum roster sizes be established:

FINAL

W-Basketball                                            15                                      12
M-Basketball                                            15                                       17
W-Soccer                                                 24                                      19
M-Soccer                                                 24                                       24
Baseball                                                  24                                        28
Softball                                                   18                                         18
Volleyball                                                14                                         14
M-Cross Country                                     10                                         14
W-Cross Country                                     10                                         13
W-Tennis                                                12                                         10

M-Golf 7 7

*NAIA Post Season Roster Maximum

It was also noted that recruiting is not currently part of the evaluation process of coaches.

Minutes Athletic and Intramural Committee
 September 20, 2006

Present: Jim Arnzen, Bob Trusz, Phil Blau, Tracy Conn, Kelly Hattas. Kristi Jarrell, Brenda Renfroe, Larry Magnus

    i. Approval of the minutes

The minutes of May 12, 2006 were reviewed, corrected, and approved.

    ii. Drug Testing Policy

Phil Blau updated the committee: The policy has been implemented over the summer, without the committee recommending either in favor or against the policy, though with a lot of feedback from the committee in shaping the policy from the original draft.

Currently contract issues with the implementation of the policy are being worked out; there has been no testing yet.

Bob Trusz brought up what exactly the role of the committee should be. The committee should consider recommendations not make policy. The role of the athletic director should not be usurped by the committee

Jim Arnzen said the policy will cost about $11,000 for the year since steroids are included in the ten panel screen. There would be about 20 athletes tested throughout the quarter, possibly one or two tests each week.

Nancy Murray asked if the committee could also see the list of what is tested for.

Phil Blau said he would email the committee this information.

Nancy Murray asked if the athletes would be educated about the testing, such as false positives or substances to avoid (such as green teas) because they could produce a positive test.

Kelly Hattas asked when testing would begin. Larry Magnus replied, hopefully, it would be not too long.

A question about prescription medication came up. Jim Arnzen said the students list any medications they are taking when the test is administered.

The subject of an appeal process was brought up. The only appeal would be a second test by the company on a “back-up” sample. The student would have to pay the cost of this second test if it also resulted in a positive. However, the back-up sample would only needed to be tested for the substance(s) found in the positive (e.g., if positive test found opiates but no steroids, the back up sample would not have to be tested for steroids , just for opiates.)

Bob Trusz said the policy the students signed over the summer would be different from the actual policy, which has some revisions, especially in the duration of a suspension for a second positive test.

The committee agreed it would be important to have students sign the final version of the policy before testing begins when the teams meet with the athletic director.

The committee agreed that following a first positive test, future tests would not be random, but follow-up tests would be at the discretion of the athletic director.

Jim Arnzen said he likely would give a follow-up to any athlete with a first positive during the next round of random testing.

There was discussion about the second positive test leading to a suspension for the rest of the academic year. The idea about having the suspension last the same percentage of an athlete’s total scheduled contests seemed to have some support from the committee, though again this penalty is different from the one stated in the letter the athletes signed.

    iii. Roster size
A minimum roster size could help in enrollment management and seems to be in line with the participation mission of athletics at Shawnee State University. The athletic director was asked to craft a recommendation about minimum roster sizes and bring this before the committee.

            Athletic and Intramural Committee Minutes                  
May 12, 2006

Present: Steve Rader, Jim Arnzen, Bob Trusz, Phil Blau, Tracy Conn, Kelly Hatas

 i.   Drug Testing

It was agreed that first we should have an anonymous ballot online set up by Steve Rader for the committee to recommend for or against having any sort of drug testing policy. If passed, then policy shall be drafted by a small subcommittee with Jim Arnzen and Steve Rader and one or more members of this committee, and possibly legal consul.

ii. Budget Review

Steve Rader notes the coaching salaries meet legal but might not meet the moral obligation, as it does not recognize the real differences by the amount of work associated with a particular sport; for example the amount of work required to coach tennis might not equal the amount of work required to coach baseball. We should try to reward coaching positions that require more responsibility.

Jim Arnzen mentioned requiring coaching salaries to be more in line with the designation of sports as major, intermediate, and minor.

Though we have three levels of sports, there seems to be more than three levels of funding. With the annual percentage increase in budgets, this would require philosophical guidelines to change the current funding differences.

iii. New Varsity Sports.

Women’s golf would required an approximate $36,000 annual funding commitment and would have a roster size of 8-10.

Bob Trusz expressed concern about that roster size; the additional recruitment might not be worth the investment. He thought a minimum roster size of 12 might be worth it.

This lead to consider if we need to look at minimum (and possibly) maximum roster sizes.

Jim thought that track, while costing more than the small annual expense required for, say, women’s golf or men’s tennis, would offer a much larger roster size and help maximum the increase in full time students.

In adding new sports we could look at primary sports in the areas, inquires in admission about golf, and student interest is likely isolated and not a sustained and demonstrated interest.

Men’s and women’s  track and cross country could have a combined roster of 100 students. This size of students could positively impact the university. To determine the feasibility we need to answer the following questions (which can be applied to any sport):

1)      Is it conference sport?

2)      Can we get games in the area?

3)      What’s the cost and how will we pay?

4)      Is there demonstrated and sustained interest?

5)      What is the impact on support services such as an increased need for
  athletic trainers?

The effect of gold and tennis would be budgetary only, but track could have ripple
effects, such as significantly increasing demand for student housing.

This led to Bob Trusz suggesting the idea of doing a cost-revenue analysis of the 100 person roster, which would measure the cost of renting facilities. In the case of track practice would be after 6:00 pm, so electricity would have to be a factor.

Jim Arnzen said rent is about $1500-$2000 and the electricity is not a major factor.

Bob Trusz suggested $7,800 as a rough figure for the annual revenue generated from a student; it is $5,800 for a freshman and increases. The cost-revenue analysis is an example of the type of data that will become more important in justify the existence of sports.

Jim Arnzen that this may point to implement some minimize roster sizes, which this committee has always voted down in the past.

Steve Rader said that the addition of new sports should be justified by data driven arguments- for example, is enough net revenue generated.

Bob Trusz commented about the importance of this- why would we give athletic scholarships if there is no net revenue.

It has been about a decade since the athletic department last did a cost benefit analysis. It was decided that the athletic director should do a current one on the existing sports, before any hypothetical ones on potential new sports, such as track.

Phil Blau said that such an analysis could help formulate determining if we need to set a minimum roster size and what that size should be.

     Jim Arnzen said that minimum roster sizes agree with our mission of participation
     in athletics.

     Minimum roster sizes would have mandatory open tryouts, which could bring
     favorable attention to the university with high school coaches and athletes and their
     families.