NCAA grants extra year of eligibility to spring athletes whose seasons were canceled

The NCAA has stepped up to do right by its athletes.

The organization’s Division I council voted on Monday to grant an extra season of eligibility to spring athletes whose seasons were canceled due to the coronavirus. The extra year of eligibility

There were questions about how the scholarship and financial aid would work for athletes granted an extra year of eligibility, because the addition of incoming freshmen next year plus athletes returning for a senior season would put programs over their scholarship limits. The NCAA approved schools to go over the scholarship limits next year.

Here are the guidelines:

“Members also adjusted financial aid rules to allow teams to carry more members on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and student-athletes who had been in their last year of eligibility who decide to stay. In a nod to the financial uncertainty faced by higher education, the Council vote also provided schools with the flexibility to give students the opportunity to return for 2020-21 without requiring that athletics aid be provided at the same level awarded for 2019-20. This flexibility applies only to student-athletes who would have exhausted eligibility in 2019-20.

There will also not be roster limits for the 2021 baseball season, which is the lone spring sport with roster limits.

Unfortunately, athletes who competed in winter sports, such as men’s and women’s basketball, will not get an extra year of eligibility, but at least spring athletes who were only a month or less into their season before it was canceled are getting an extra year, as they should.