NCAA Institutional Limitations

A member institution shall limit its organized practice activities, the length of it’s playing seasons and the number of its regular-season contests and/or dates of competition in all sports, as well as the extent of its participation in non-collegiate sponsored athletics activities, to minimize interference with the academic programs of its student-athletes.

17.02.1 Athletically Related Activities

17.02.1.1 Athletically Related Activities. The following are considered athletically related activities: (adopted: 1/10/91 effective 8/1/92)

(a)   Practice, which is defined as any meeting, activity or instruction involving sports-related information and having an athletics purpose, held for one or more student-athletes at the direction of, or supervised by, any member or members of an institution’s coaching staff. Practice is considered to have occurred if one or more coaches and one or more student-athletes engage in any of the following activities:

(1)   Field, floor or on-court activity;
(2)   Setting up offensive or defensive alignment;
(3)   Chalk talk;
(4)   Lecture on or discussion of strategy related to the sport;
(5)   Activities using equipment related to the sport;
(6)   Discussion or review of game films, motion pictures or videotapes related to the sport, except for the observation of an officiating clinic related to playing rules that is conducted by video conference and does not require student-athletes to miss any class time to observe the clinic; or
(7)   Any other athletically related activity (Revised: 10/18 04)

(b)   Competition;

(c)   Required weight-training and conditioning activities held at the direction of or supervised by an institutional staff member;

(d)   Participation in a physical fitness class (including a summer class) conducted by a member of the athletics staff, unless such a class is a regular physical education class listed in the institution’s catalog and open to all students. Such a class may not include practice activities conducted under the guise of physical education activities; (Adopted: 1/10/95)

(e)   Required participation in camps, clinics or workshops;

(f)   Individual workouts required or supervised by a member of the coaching staff. A coach may design a voluntary general individual-workout program for a student-athlete (as opposed to a specific workout program for specific days) but cannot conduct the individual’s workout; (Adopted: 1/10/91 effective 8/1/91, Revised: 1/12/04)

(g)   On-court or on-field activities called by any member(s) of a team and confined primarily to members of that team that are considered requisite for participation in that sport (e.g., captain’s practices);

(h)   Visiting the competition site in cross country, golf and skiing; (Adopted: 1/16/93)

(i)   Reservation or use of an institution’s athletic facilities when such activities are supervised by or held at the direction of any member of an institution’s coaching staff; (Revised: 1/10/92, 1/16/93)

(j)   Involvement of an institution’s strength and conditioning staff with enrolled student-athletes in required conditioning programs. Strength and conditioning personnel may monitor voluntary individual workouts for safety purposes; and (Revised: 1/10/92)

(k)   Observation by an institution’s coaching staff member of enrolled student-athletes in non-organized sport-specific activities (e.g., “pick-up games”). A coach’s observation of enrolled student-athletes in organized competition (e.g., summer league) is not considered an athletically related activity, provided the coach does not direct or supervise the activity. (Adopted: 1/10/05)