UTAH RUNNING GUIDE

The following rules apply to any high school student from the summer before their Freshman year through high school, after high school before college, even if there is a break of several years, until the final day of collegiate competition is over.  For questions concerning the interpretation of the rules, call the NCAA Academic and Membership Affairs office at 317-917-6222, 10 am-2 pm M.S.T.  If you aren’t a parent of an NCAA athlete, coach, press, an NCAA athlete or high school athlete or an attorney, press 7.  For info about prize money press 7 again.  In order to avoid paying long distance fees, call the NCAA Amateur Eligibility Center: 877-622-2321, and ask them to transfer you to the Membership dept.

Prior to college, high school athletes are allowed to win prizes in races, based on performance, that don’t exceed actual and necessary expenses of the race any time of year, provided from the sponsor of the event.

On the official NCAA.org website, at this link: Click here, there is a section that details certain activities that are prohibited in order to maintain an amateur status:

Certification of NCAA Divisions I and II Amateurism Rules

Amateurism certification will not cover all areas of NCAA Bylaw 12.  Institutions will be responsible for determining the amateur status of prospective student-athletes for the areas of the amateurism bylaws not covered by the amateurism certification process. In addition, institutions will be responsible for certifying compliance for all amateurism bylaws during the time period between the student-athlete’s request for final amateurism certification and his or her initial enrollment at an NCAA institution.

Selected amateurism rules to be certified by amateurism certification include:

• Contracts with a professional team (Division I);
  
• Salary for participating in athletics (Division I);
  
• Prize money above actual and necessary expenses (Division I);
  
• Play with professionals (Division I);
  
• Tryouts, practice or competition with a professional team (Division I);
  
• Benefits from an agent or prospective agent (Divisions I and II);
  
• Agreement to be represented by an agent (Divisions I and II); and
  
• Organized-competition rule (Divisions I and II).

According to NCAA compliance rules as specified by the NCAA (called them 3-9-10):

During the official summer vacation, college athletes who wish to remain eligible for high school and college sports may not accept prize money, gift certificates, or prizes that could be resold for a value exceeding the cost of participation, such as entry fees, travel to and from the event, room and board, etc.  For example, if they live far enough away from an event that they need a hotel the night before, which costs $50, and other expenses include gas round trip ($15), breakfast on race morning ($5), lunch ($10), and an entry fee ($20), totaling $100, they may accept up to $100 in cash, gift certificates, or prizes worth no more than $100 in total.  During the academic year they may not accept any prize money, gift certificates, or prizes that can be sold for any value, or donate them to another organization or business, even if it is a charity.  The only prizes that can be accepted are things such as trophies, medals, ribbons, plaques, and other items that have no resale value.

It is a good idea to ask winners of prize money if they are high school or prospective college athletes because some of them do not know the rules and do not realize that they are risking their eligibility by accepting prizes.  You can then inform them of the rules and they can decide whether or not they want to risk their eligibility.

Some running shoe stores in the past have made arrangements with NCAA athletes in which the athlete asks the race director to donate the money to their store and the store in turn will donate in-store credit to the athletes.  Unfortunately this is not currently compliant with the rules.  It is unknown if it used to be acceptable according to the rules, but it is currently not.  It is important that NCAA athletes inform businesses who may suggest these arrangements of the current rules because they may not know all the ramifications of the rules.

If an NCAA athlete does not accept a prize, it is their responsibility to inform the race director of their NCAA status and the rule and to ask them to bump all prize money down to the next eligible runners.  The other runners are the rightful recipients of the prize money, so race directors should not withhold their prizes when NCAA athletes take prize money positions.  To do so is false-advertisement if the race director has advertised certain prize money for certain placements and then does not pay it out due to a certain number of ineligible athletes taking these positions.  Otherwise, it would be to the advantage of race directors to advertise large prizes and encourage NCAA athletes to come run so they still get a large turnout but do not have to give out the prizes they advertised.

According to the Vice President of USATF -Utah & East High School Track & XC Coach Bill Cobler:

“You can compete as a D1 &D2 athlete and accept prize money if you do not accept more than the actual and necessary expenses for participation.  See below…  Gas and travel are big ones, entry fees, paid coaching, membership expense to a gym, shoes, running apparel, food, lodging, medical treatment, health insurance and a grey area of other reasonable expenses…Laundry money, internet service provider fees so you can blog your miles, register online and find races…Cell phone fees so you can keep in touch with your coach and team mates to arrange workouts so you can train to run races and win prize money to pay for all the above.”

According to the NCAA phone representatives:

12.02.4 is the section that details how much money you can win in a race based off of expenses of the race, and is similar to the following but includes the phrase that you must use the “fair market value.”  The only transportation cost you can include for using your own vehicle is gas, not wear and tear.   All expenses below that you have if you are competing in a race that are directly tied to that race can be counted.

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NCAA Interpretation of the above-mentioned rules:

Actual and necessary expenses start only once you arrive the competition.  You can’t include any expenses in your home town, or for more than a few days prior to your competition if you have to travel out of town to get there, and only those necessary for that competition.

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NCAA.org site:

A few of the rules from the NCAA Compliance Book (can be found in college Compliance offices):

Page 64:

12.1.2.1.4.2 Expenses/Awards Prohibited by Rules Governing Event. Expenses incurred or awards received by an individual that are prohibited by the rules governing an amateur, noncollegiate event in which the individual participates.

12.1.2.1.4.3 Expenses from Outside Team or Organization. Expenses received from an outside amateur sports team or organization in excess of actual and necessary travel, room and board expenses, and apparel and equipment (for individual and team use only from teams or organizations not affiliated with member institutions, including local sports clubs as set forth in Bylaw 13.11.2.3) for competition and practice held in preparation for such competition.  Practice must be conducted in a continuous time period preceding the competition except for practice sessions conducted by a national team, which occasionally may be interrupted for specific periods of tiem preceding the competition.

Page 65:

12.1.2.3 Road Racing. “Road racing” is essentially the same as cross country or track and field competition and cannot be separated effectively from those sports for purposes of Bylaw 12.  Therefore, a student-athlete who accepts pay in any form por participation in such a race is ineligible for intercollegiate cross country or track and field competition.

12.1.2.4 Exceptions to Amateurism Rule.

12.1.2.4.2 Exception for Prize Money Prior to Full-Time Collegiate Enrollment. Prior to collegiate enrollment, an individual may accept prize money based on his or her place finish or performance in an open athletics event (an event that is not invitation only).  Such prize money may not exceed actual and necessary expenses and may be provided only by the sponsor of the open event.  The calculation of actual and necessary expenses shall not include the expenses or fees of anyone other than the prospective student-athlete (e.g., coach’s fees or expenses, parent’s expenses).

12.1.2.4.1 Exception for prize money prior to Highschool

See book for all rules.

Interpretation by Mary Ann Schauerhamer, creator of this website, which will be researched and confirmed or denied later after further investigation:

You must pro-rate expenses based on how much of the expense you have to spend on that particular event.  For example, if you pay $30/month on health insurance each month anyways, you can only get $1 in prizes for 1 day of the competition.  And you can’t include internet service for the entire month before the race, or the year before the race.  It’s just expenses that are extra from your normal expenses that come from traveling to a race that is out of town.  If they use the internet for other uses during the month, they can’t include the whole bill as a necessary expense for that competition.  Same with running shoes and apparel.  If they wear them for other races, they can only pro-rate the expense based on how many times they wear those clothes.

For a race in your hometown, if a high school athlete wins over $10 worth of prizes, I would think that it would be in violation of NCAA rules because they already live in the same city as the race is in, so they don’t have extra lodging fees or transportation costs over maybe $5 worth, and they don’t have to pay extra for coaching them since they have a high school coach.  Their only expenses would be to wash their uniform ($5).   They don’t need a gym membership the day of the race because they would already have one if they needed one and they have the free use of the high school gym.  Even if they did need a gym membership, it would only be for that day’s worth of use, and only if it was used the morning of the race.

I am getting more details to either confirm or expel this pro-ration interpretation soon.