Horizon League spat latest reminder that student-athlete welfare now a top priority

Swimmers and divers at the University of Illinois-Chicago are competing in the Horizon League championships this week just days after believing they would not be allowed to because of a nearly decade-old conference bylaw. 

How this all transpired is instructive for leagues nationwide as they grapple with new challenges stemming from conference realignments and the rapidly changing tenor surrounding college sports.

This story starts January 26, when UIC announced it would be exiting the Horizon League and joining the Missouri Valley Conference on July 1. Under Horizon bylaws, UIC’s winter and spring teams would not be permitted to compete in conference championships because the school did not give notice of at least one year. In 2013, the league amended its departure bylaw, reducing the notice time from two years to one and adding that, if a one-year notice isn’t provided, a school loses the privilege of having its teams compete in league championships. 

We’ve seen this play out elsewhere: The America East enforced a postseason ban on departing member Stony Brook, while the Colonial Athletic Association did the same to James Madison. In other words, athletes suffer for administrative decisions.

Then matters turned messy between UIC and the Horizon. UIC issued a statement with provocative phrasing, misleadingly stating that the Horizon decided to “expel” UIC from conference championships. And Michael Lipitz, UIC’s athletic director, told the Chicago Tribune, “It’s really disappointing that the adults in the room would take that part away from the student-athletes.” It was a particularly rich comment considering that when the Horizon League amended the bylaw, UIC actually sponsored the new version. 

With student-athlete welfare top of mind, the Horizon’s board of directors on Tuesday voted to grant an exception and allow UIC winter and spring teams to compete in conference championships. In a statement, Horizon commissioner Julie Roe Lach unleashed sharp criticism at UIC, saying “the response from UIC leaders has been disappointing, disingenuous, and inconsistent with our league values.”

Leave aside that UIC opted not to make what would have been a reasonable request to the MVC to enter in 2023. If you want to point the finger at the true villain here, take aim at the bylaw — and similar ones in other conferences — that punish student-athletes because of a university’s decision when to leave for another conference. 

This is 2022, amid the age of student-athlete empowerment. Those bylaws are grossly antiquated. It’s a different time. There is a strong priority now on student-athlete welfare, amplifying their voice, giving them fair representation on some NCAA legislative matters and not punishing them for the decisions of others.

This has been playing out on the NCAA enforcement front. In the rewriting of the association’s constitution, there is an emphasis moving forward on avoiding levying penalties against schools (particularly postseason bans) that wind up punishing athletes who had nothing to do with the rule-breaking. 

When Roe Lach was asked in a phone interview Wednesday what her biggest takeaway was from the UIC saga, she made a point to emphasize the changing nature of college athletics and how student-athlete issues are at the forefront. “We are in the age of the student-athlete, which is a good thing,” she told On3. “But that also really challenges the way some decisions have been made in the past or some rules that are on the books, so to speak, and whether or not those should be the rules going forward.”

Giving adequate notice does matter, and Roe Lach said not doing so can cause a significant ripple effect. It impacts scheduling, televised inventory and other elements. That said, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that games can be scheduled and logistics adjusted relatively quickly. And overly long transition periods — those longer than a year — before schools depart are almost always awkward (just ask Texas and Oklahoma). Any divorce is hard; an exceedingly long divorce can be insufferable.

“What’s the old song, ‘Breaking up is hard to do,’ ” Roe Lach said. “There could be some tension [typically]. I don’t think it has to be inevitable. I think where things get tough is where a member wants to move a little sooner than initially agreed upon … [when] exiting members don’t want to agree to whatever it is they’ve agreed to on the front end.”

That said, punishing student-athletes is an old-school punitive measure. And the age of old-school punitive measures that affect innocent athletes is dead. While UIC declined to ask the MVC to join next year — which could have solved matters — the Horizon ultimately landed on the correct outcome. In the future, this public display rancor can be avoided by amending bylaws. 

All leagues should take heed. Conferences need to find a new deterrent. And when schools violate those new departure bylaws, they need to be held to the letter of the law. Hit the schools in the wallet; spare the athletes. That’s college sports in 2022, and beyond.

“We will take a review and say, ‘What makes sense in this world of Division I — this changing landscape that we are all living in — to keep? And are there any changes, refinements, amendments that we want to consider?” Roe Lach said. “That’s just healthy. And certainly what’s happened over the last few months is a trigger for that review.”