Through public records requests, The Intercollegiate obtained 2019-20 team-specific rules and athlete conduct policies from 236 different college sports programs across 52 D-I universities. Our representative cross section features: 127 women’s, 89 men’s and 15 coed programs; 55 teams from Black plurality sports (football and men’s and women’s basketball); and an almost perfectly even split between Power 5 and non-Power 5 squads.
These rules immediately preceded the coronavirus pandemic, the George Floyd protests and the ensuing athlete activism that has come to the fore in recent months. Considered in this new context, the written rules posit an increasingly central question for this chaotic, potentially kairotic moment in the history of college sports: What should an athlete be expected to surrender in exchange for a grant-in-aid?
You can read more about our discoveries here.