Cost-of-attendance stipends to be added to sports scholarships

University of Richmond will add cost-of-attendance stipends to scholarships for men's and women’s basketball players, yet there are no current plans to offer a stipend to scholarship athletes on Richmond’s 14 other varsity teams.

The 65 universities that play in the FBS’s five power conferences, and 15 student-athlete representatives, voted 79-1 in favor of a historic cost-of-attendance stipend at the NCAA Convention on Jan. 17. The NCAA gave the power conferences autonomy on several important issues, including the cost-of-attendance stipend, in April 2014.

The Atlantic 10 – to which most of Richmond's varsity teams belong, with the exception of football, men’s lacrosse and women’s golf – announced in November its commitment to the potential stipend, but had to wait until January to officially issue these unprecedented stipends.

“To maintain its status as a premier conference, the A-10 Presidents Council collectively committed to cost of attendance scholarships in basketball, should it become permissible as NCAA legislation this January,” according to a league press release from November.

The Atlantic 10 reaffirmed its commitment the day following the NCAA’s announcement, and all conference members will be required to offer the stipends to men’s and women’s basketball players.

Richmond is in the process of determining how this new legislation will impact Richmond athletics and which Richmond teams will receive this stipend, Athletic Director Keith Gill said.

“We still have some time to kind of decide and crunch some numbers and get a sense of what makes sense,” Gill said. “So hopefully, we’ll have those plans…in the coming months.”

The stipends, which will likely vary between $2,000 and $4,000 annually depending on the school, are designed to cover cost-of-living expenses not covered by athletic scholarships and will be paid for by the schools.

National discussion on this type of stipend intensified after Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier told reporters he sometimes went to bed starving despite being on scholarship, days before winning the 2014 National Championship.

“At the end of the day, [scholarships] don’t cover everything,” Napier said. “We do have hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food, and sometimes money is needed.”

Genevieve Okoro, a Richmond women’s basketball player, shares similar beliefs.

“It definitely makes sense if you think about the money the NCAA profits off of us,” Okoro said. “They’re making all of the money; we are the ones sacrificing our bodies.”

Richmond women’s basketball coach Michael Shafer, a self-described “old-school guy,” was more hesitant in his support, pointing to the value of a standard scholarship.

“I understand why we are doing it, but at the same time – these kids work hard I understand that – but we also give them a full scholarship, too,” Shafer said.

Although this new stipend will help certain student-athletes nationwide, others, including Richmond’s non-basketball athletes would miss out, as things currently stand.

Although Richmond lacrosse players are not slated to receive the stipend, and some opponents will likely make use of the allowed stipend, Richmond men’s lacrosse coach Dan Chemotti is not concerned with the possible impacts.

“Would it be good to have?” Chemotti rhetorically asked. “Yeah, you know, absolutely. But are we going to find ways to win without it? If that’s what we need to do, then that’s what we are going to do.”

Unlike Chemotti, Richmond football coach Danny Rocco acknowledged this stipend could impact Richmond, especially on the recruiting front given Richmond competes with FBS schools that will offer stipends, but he does not know to what extent.

Rocco, who recently announced his 2015 recruiting class, which included three FBS transfers and at least one commit who had an FBS offer, said the stipend was not topical during this recruiting season, but that could change.

“I do think that day’s right around the corner,” Rocco said. “The dynamics of that…will unfold as we march through it.”