CCU, Big South entering new world of college athletics with COA stipends

Sitting in his office for a discussion about the evolving landscape of collegiate athletics, a recent game-changing NCAA decision and what it all means locally, Coastal Carolina University athletic director Matt Hogue effectively summed up a 15-minute conversation in a few words.

“There’s no question this has opened up a whole new world,” he said.

The NCAA’s vote in January, spearheaded by the “Power Five” conferences, to permit all Division I schools to offer athletes additional money to cover the full “cost of attendance” in addition to traditional scholarship aid does not just affect the South Carolinas, Clemsons and North Carolinas of the college athletics world.

It has already very much become a pertinent issue for Coastal Carolina and other mid-major programs across the country, and starting in the 2015-16 athletic year the Chanticleers and the rest of the Big South Conference will provide those additional “COA” benefits to all of their men’s and women’s basketball players on scholarship.

Hogue estimates that will cost Coastal Carolina an extra $140,000 a year with COA stipends ranging from about $4,500 to $5,300 per athlete.

“We’re still at such an infant stage with all of this, I’m not even sure that all of the players – and I say players generally speaking, administrators, coaches, athletes – I’m not sure all the players in this landscape really understand all the ins and outs of this issue,” Hogue said. “We’re kind of learning on the fly, especially given the fact that in most cases schools can’t just say here’s [extra money for] every athlete, every sport. ...

“I don’t think in my mind that we’re just drawing the line right now and saying we’re never going to go beyond basketball, but I think you’ve got to be very careful about how far you want to dip into the pool because from a resource standpoint you can be at the deep end very fast.”

In mid-January, the 65 universities comprising college athletics’ five biggest conferences – who have been granted greater autonomy in rules-making by the NCAA – as well as 15 student-athlete representatives from those leagues voted 79-1 to allow Division I schools to add COA money on top of traditional scholarships for all athletes. The single no vote came from Boston College.

Presidents from the Big South’s 11 basketball-playing members then voted unanimously in March to adopt COA for men’s and women’s basketball, while Liberty put its abundant resources – unusual for a school in the Football Championship Subdivision, formerly Division I-AA, level – to work while announcing it would offer COA to all of its student-athletes.

That is not expected to become the norm for schools in the NCAA’s second tier.

“Quite frankly, we saw that as inevitable in basketball in Division I. I think everybody at some point in the next few years is going to provide scholarships and COA,” Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander said.

“... Beyond basketball, it is going to be up to each individual institution as far as what they can do. I don’t see it happening across the board in a major way in FCS overall. Obviously, Liberty made their statement of what they’re doing. They’re in a unique position. I don’t see that happening beyond even a handful of situations. I don’t see that happening even in football in FCS because then you have to balance that on the women’s side and it’s very cost prohibitive.”

Like Hogue said, there’s still a lot to figure out for schools at all levels, especially those the size of Coastal Carolina.

The decision to start with COA for at least men’s and women’s basketball stemmed from a conference-wide discussion of how to further elevate that sport, which the Big South sees as its face on the national level.

Coastal Carolina men’s basketball coach Cliff Ellis, meanwhile, sees providing COA as a necessity to stay competitive in his sport.

“The bottom line is with that having been done [at the NCAA level] it’s been done and those schools that don’t go along with it, you might as well as get out of Division I because if you’re going to be a Division I player you’re going to have to have it,” Ellis said. “... It was just a reality that this is where Division I is.”

Beyond that, he says, it’s something that has been needed for a long time.

“I think it’s a great thing for the student-athlete. The student-athlete has been somewhat handicapped with regards to going to school and being able to take care of things such as toothpaste and things like that, needs,” Ellis said. “In our sport there are millions of dollars that are coming [in]. Just taking our university alone, our basketball program is worth millions to our university and for them to be able to get the benefits that athletes really have needed for some time – I know that people have been on a bandwagon for it – it’s a good thing.”

Coastal Carolina women’s basketball coach Jaida Williams said it shows an investment from the university and a statement on the expectations placed on recruiting and, in turn, on-court success.

She noted that it has already been a useful tool for her program as she announced a nine-player recruiting class Friday, albeit not all of those players are coming in on scholarship. That class included two players from New York and California who were nominees for the prestigious high school McDonald’s All-American honor.

“It was something we were able to lead with and I don’t know if we would have been able to do it, especially with our freshmen McDonald’s All-American [nominees] if we didn’t have COA,” Williams said.

“I think it’s most beneficial because a lot of the student-athletes, I know a lot of our student-athletes do not come from privileged homes, so being able to pay for plane tickets or being able to buy clothes or have extra money at the end of the month to buy food for those that live off campus, I think that’s huge for them. I know their families are really appreciative. I think it’s going to be really, really helpful. I’m really glad Coastal has stood behind the COA.”

Olivia Carlton, a rising junior on the women’s basketball team from Granger, Ind., explained from an athlete’s standpoint how that additional COA money comes into play.

“Being a Division I athlete, it is a full-time job so it’s nice to have cost of attendance paid for,” she said. “... Before this, tuition, room and board, and books were paid for so everything else, transportation, parking passes, all the stuff you need for classes, food, everything else it really costs to go to college, was coming out of [our] own pockets.”

The amount each athlete receives through COA varies by school and by individual based on factors including whether they are in-state or out-of-state, whether they can travel home via a car ride or require a flight, etc.

These numbers have been in existence at the university previously, for use in other financial aid provided to students, and are calculated by the school’s financial aid office in compliance with NCAA standards.

“Everybody has to kind of live by the same general approach to calculating, but in essence you might have four or five different numbers,” Hogue said.

As for where that money comes from, it will largely be supported by the university as a whole, Hogue said, including the student athletic fee assessed to every student to cover free tickets to athletic events, etc. That fee, which used to be different for in-state and out-of-state students, was set at $265 per semester for all students at the university’s latest board of trustees meeting this week.

“First and foremost we try to utilize revenues that we have coming in that can cover it, and so if those are available we’ll look at that,” Hogue said. “We always look at those first. Do we see a spike in ticket sales? Do we see a spike in corporate sponsorships? Some of those things that we have every year will be one way to look at it, but generally speaking it is going to be a commitment that comes from the university. That’s really what we’ve been told at this point is, ‘We will help you cover that.’ ...

“There is some fluctuation from year to year based on enrollment, based on how many of those [student athletic] fees you collect, so our hope is we’ve got some breathing room in there that that $140,000 can be encompassed in that number.”

In regard to any competitive balance issues that stem from schools like rival Liberty utilizing their COA options to different extents, Hogue said he’s not so much concerned by that aspect of it. As he put it, one program can’t sign all the players and athletes base their decisions on a multitude of factors.

He’s more curious to see where it goes from here, what larger trends emerge on the national level, especially at similarly sized FCS schools, and how it is fairly applied or utilized.

“What I’m more concerned about is does this become an area that opens up the door for abuses?” Hogue said. “Does this open up the door for misapplication of the rules, misapplication of the federal financial aid rules and where does that take us maybe as a business overall?”

Like he said, it’s a whole new world for college athletics.

This story was originally published May 10, 2015 at 1:03 AM with the headline "CCU, Big South entering new world of college athletics with COA stipends."