Ivy athletes' group discusses league and NCAA issues

On May 3, student-athlete leaders representing Ivy League institutions Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale met at Yale in New Haven, Conn., to discuss issues concerning student-athlete welfare in both the Ivy League and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Representatives from Columbia, Harvard and Pennsylvania were unable to attend the meeting due to previous commitments and final examinations.

Discussions at the Ivy Group meeting focused on two areas: The first was the importance of having well functioning Student-Athlete Advisory Councils, or Captains' Councils, on the campuses of every Ivy institution; the second centered on involving student-athletes in the decision-making processes at both the Ivy and NCAA levels.

The delegates agreed to set up a mechanism for offering student-athlete opinion on proposed NCAA legislative matters to the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). It was decided that the Ivy Group student representative to the NCAA committee, currently Cornell senior Erik Weinick, will solicit each campus council for opinions on matters affecting student-athletes in the league. These opinions will be shared with the presidents, policy group members and athletic directors at the institutions and will be used to consider
how the Ivy Group might vote at the NCAA Management Council level.

At the conclusion of the meeting, group members agreed to hold regular conference calls next semester in order to work toward the goals the group has decided on, including establishing an Ivy League-wide Student-Athlete Advisory Council, whose mission would be the promotion of student-athlete welfare and camaraderie in the Ivy League.

Said Weinick of the meeting: "The group really began to work well together, and it is another illustration of what I've believed for a long time -- that is that within the Ivy League there is a sense of camaraderie and sportsmanship that far exceeds that found anywhere else in collegiate athletics, with the possible exception of the service academies. We are all fierce competitors, but when it comes to common interests, we have shown that we have a desire and the ability to cooperate."