Name: Missy Conboy
Background: Conboy, a native of Buffalo, is a 1982 graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She received a law degree from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, in 1985. From 1985 to 1987 she worked as an investigator for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Conboy has been the associate athletic director at Notre Dame since 1987. She lives in South Bend with her husband and young daughter.
Years on the job: 7
When most people think of college sports, they think about the excitement of the events and winning traditions, not rules and regulations. But the truth is, intercollegiate athletics are highly regulated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Penalties for rules infractions can hurt recruiting, cause cancellation of media contracts and adversely affect alumni donations. What cannot be measured is the damage to a school’s reputation.
In 1987 I became the first person in the history of the University of Notre Dame to be hired specifically to enforce NCAA rules. Notre Dame was one of the first Division I schools to hire someone for that job. I played basketball on one of Notre Dame’s first female teams, earned a law degree and worked as an investigator for the NCAA, so the job is a natural fit for me.
The NCAA is a voluntary organization made up of coaches and administrators. Compliance is a continual, year-round responsibility. There is never a day when students, coaches, administrators, parents and alumni don’t need to know what the rules are and how they should be enforced.
The university competes in 24 sports, and it is my responsibility to make sure every athlete and coach involved complies with NCAA regulations. The challenge is to anticipate every possible compliance problem. We have learned a lot from our mistakes, because once you discover a problem, you realize you should have been doing something to monitor and prevent the infraction all along.
For me, the “typical day” is seasonal. Each fall we collect the summer-job reports of nearly 300 student athletes to make sure they weren’t earning excess dollars based on their athletic reputation. The NCAA also requires athletes to sign release forms for mandatory drug testing. In addition, we must certify that they meet the minimum academic standards for eligibility set by the NCAA and Notre Dame. Each November we spend a lot of time reviewing proposals for the next NCAA convention in January.
As Notre Dame’s compliance representative, I must discuss NCAA-proposed rules with coaches, athletic administrators and the faculty board in control of athletics. It’s important to discuss any proposed rules before the convention so we know how we are going to vote-and why.
It is important to keep alumni informed because one of the most difficult things all college athletic departments face is the “booster mentality”-alumni trying to “sell” potential athletes on their schools, through offers of money or gifts. Few people realize that the schools are held responsible when alumni violate the rules. Alumni must realize they run the risk of being disassociated from the university, including being barred from alumni clubs and season-ticket privileges if a violation occurs.
Ensuring the fair recruitment of high school athletes is one of the most complicated and visible aspects of NCAA compliance. We must carefully monitor the recruiting practices of all of our coaches so if an infraction occurs, we can be the first to record and report it. For example, NCAA rules state that coaches cannot call prospective athletes until the first of July before their senior year. So we require coaches to keep a weekly log of all calls made to high school athletes, including the duration and nature of conversations, even if they just left a message. We require that coaches submit these call sheets weekly, and we keep them for 10 years, just in case our recruiting tactics are ever called into question. . . . There is no such thing as an insignificant infraction, because too many small violations can be viewed as a big problem by the NCAA.
The NCAA is also very strict about the amount of time a team spends practicing. Coaches are required to document the number of hours a week spent on practice, or what the NCAA calls “countable athletic-related activity.” This activity includes formal practice time as well as mandatory weight training, films and meetings. Teams can practice only 20 hours a week on season, with eight hours of “conditioning activity” off season.
The most difficult aspect of my job is dealing with the media. If there is a personal problem with an athlete, we are compelled to protect the athlete’s privacy. But we also want to be honest with the media. If an athlete were to test positive for drugs, our first obligation would be to get them help, not to broadcast their problem to the world. We also have an obligation to keep someone out of a competition if they are academically ineligible, but it is not our place to discuss the specifics of a student’s academic record with the media.
One of the hottest current issues is the application of Title IX legislation, which addresses equal opportunity for men and women in higher education. Title IX was enacted in 1972-ironically, the year that Notre Dame began admitting women-but it is only recently that institutions have started applying that legislation.
There are three prongs of Title IX: scholarships, participation and support services. It ensures that male and female athletes have equitable scholarship dollars and an opportunity for participation parallel to the gender makeup of the student body. In addition, the schools must provide equal facilities. If a men’s team has a locker room, then the women’s team must have the same. The revenue that a particular sport brings into a school cannot be a deciding factor in facilities or opportunity.
Notre Dame is now about 40 percent women, and 44 percent of the incoming class is female. When I was in school here in the late ’70s, only 23 percent of the school was female. In my freshman year, there were no scholarships available for female athletes. By my junior year, there were a few scholarships, and by senior year, full scholarships were available. Needless to say, the quality of the athletes improved with the offering of scholarships. By senior year I was spending a lot of time on the bench.
Most people-alumni, coaches, administrators and even some student athletes-see rules compliance as a necessary evil. But as with any rules, the NCAA’s are meant to ensure a fair and equitable environment and opportunity for everyone. Every rule evolved out of someone’s bad experience. We can vote to change rules that we do not like, but as long as they are in force, it is my job to make sure that Notre Dame does all that it can to protect the future of intercollegiate athletics.
