Last week, the NAIA announced that financial aid awarded to college athletes who score high grade-point averages will not count against NAIA schools' scholarship limits. The policy begins in August 1997.
That date coincides with the last of three years of NCAA Division II probation for both Brigham Young-Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific. Both began holding dual membership in the NAIA and NCAA last fall and have until the fall of 1998 to bring their athletic departments into compliance with NCAA regulations and standards.
The August 1997 date is also when the two join former NAIA members Hawaii-Hilo and Chaminade in the Pacific West Conference. All four will compete in the PacWest for men's basketball and women's volleyball although HPU and BYU-Hawaii will not be eligible for NCAA postseason competition in the fall of 1998.
"I think it (the new athletic scholarship formula) would have been great for us," said Hawaii Pacific athletic director Tony Sellitto, who is also the Sea Warrior's basketball coach. "It definitely rewards you for having a team full of good students. It rewards a school that recruits good student-athletes by giving them more scholarships."
The new policy allows NAIA schools to award financial aid to athletes who have a 3.6 GPA or higher, without that aid counting against the schools' scholarship limits. Only one half of the aid to students with 3.3-3.59 GPAs will count against the limits.
A student with lower grades could then receive an athletic scholarship that becomes available under these new guidelines.
"I think it is an interesting proposal," said Ken Wagner, BYU-Hawaii athletic director and men's volleyball coach. "If you have good students, you can award more scholarships. We would have had three or four kids we didn't have to count (against the limit) but financially we wouldn't have been able to give the money."
To comply with NCAA Division II standards, BYU-Hawaii is having to spend money on two new sports. Division II status requires four men's and four women's sports; BYU-Hawaii is adding men's soccer and reviving its women's softball program.
The two athletic directors from HPU and BYU-Hawaii are not certain that the move to the NCAA will be better than staying in the NAIA. At the end of the 1997-98 season, they have the choice to remain in the NAIA.
Hawaii's small colleges have won 12 NAIA women's volleyball championships since 1981 - six by BYU-Hawaii, five by Hawaii-Hilo and one by Hawaii Pacific. Hawaii Pacific also won the men's basketball crown in 1993.