Panel: Nic Athletics Needs Good Workout Committee Calls For Changes In Financial Aid, More Women’s Sports

North Idaho College needs to balance financial aid between student athletes and non-athletes and provide more women’s sports, a special committee says.

After meeting five times in five weeks, a special NIC committee has sent its recommendations for change in the athletic program to the NIC Board of Trustees.

The board will discuss the recommendations this week.

The committee of Kootenai County residents, businessmen, faculty members and students called for a limit on athletic spending and made 10 other suggestions.

Overall, however, the committee showed strong support for continuing NIC’s tradition of participating in a highly competitive athletic league and bringing in out-of-state players in order to do that.

“I’m pleased with the way it came out,” said Jim Headley, NIC’s athletic director. Despite the positive outcome, Headley said he wouldn’t describe the committee as “over-friendly.”

“I respect the diversity of opinion, because it brought out some good dialogue,” he said.

Much of that discussion centered around the issue of tuition and fee waivers. A large boost in the athletic department’s budget for the waivers this year was one reason the 24-person committee was formed to study athletics.

The waivers are often used to attract athletes from out of state. Some residents complained that the community college should give waivers to local students, since local tax dollars support the college.

But the committee agreed that the waivers should not be geographically restricted, citing the value of bringing in students from other cultural backgrounds.

Most of the committee members did object to the practice of spending almost all of tuition and fee waivers on student athletes instead of non-athletes.

Though less than 10 percent of the student body participates in inter-collegiate athletics, 84 percent of the $384,814 in tuition and fee waivers will be spent on athletes this year.

A NIC booster who sat on the committee said that academic scholarships from other sources provide a balance, prompting faculty member Lloyd Marsh to shake his head in disagreement at a recent meeting.

Some faculty members have been unsuccessful in requesting a larger share of tuition and fee waivers for their students.

Headley said his success at getting tuition and fee waivers for athletes may be due to the fact that he has direct access to the president.

As a result of the discussion, the committee is recommending that the college “address the imbalance” in the award of tuition and fee waivers to athletes and non-athletes.

“It was a compromise,” said Marsh of the final list of recommendations. “Which is good, because everybody wins. No one loses.”

Marsh said he was pleased, too, with the recommendation to pursue gender equity and add another women’s sport.

“There’s been a serious imbalance and we have to take every opportunity to improve gender equity.”

But equity won’t come at any cost. The committee suggested that the athletic budget, including tuition and fee waivers, not exceed 4.7 percent of the total college budget. This year, athletics is about 4.9 percent of the total budget.

That means the addition of new sports will require a decrease in tuition in fee waivers, or reductions in some other area of the budget, or a sufficient increase in the overall college budget.

Much of the operations budget now is spent on traveling in the far-flung Scenic West Athletic Conference, but the committee voted to stay in the conference.

Other recommendations include keeping better track of attendance at athletic events and the economic impact of NIC athletics on the community. The committee also suggested that the students be surveyed periodically to hear their suggestions for changes in college athletics.

The regular meeting of the NIC Board of Trustees is at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Kootenai Room of the student union building.

, DataTimes MEMO: Cut in the Spokane edition.