The NCAA suspended implementation of its official staff interpretation of Bylaw 13.11.1.2 yesterday as the US swimming community breathed a sigh of relief. The new interpretation will not be implemented until March 26 – after the NCAA Championships are over.

The interpretation prohibits college athletes from competing directly against high school athletes who may be prospective college athletes. Specifically, it outlaws college and high school swimmers from swimming in the same heat. If put into effect, it would necessitate seeding separate heats and finals for high school and college swimmers and would have affected meets such as the US Open (now discontinued, US Nationals, and Grand Prix Meets), essentially wreaking havoc on virtually every senior-level USA Swimming meet on the calendar.

The staff interpretation of last July had held that such competition was permissible so long as the event either involved no team scoring, or if there were team scoring, the college team and the outside team were to be scored separately. Brad Hostetter, the NCAA’s Director of Membership Services explained:

“Due to the timing of this official interpretation and the reliance on the 7/19/06 staff interpretation in establishing events, we are not holding events/institutions accountable to the official interpretation until March 26, 2007. This date allows the swimming, skiing and indoor track community to get through their championships and provides a more reasonable time for spring meets to adjust to the official interpretation. Further, there is an outstanding issue that LRIC will likely discuss as it relates to their official interpretation next week. We will follow up with everyone on that issue as it unfolds.

The news was conveyed last evening in an e-mail from CSCAA Executive Director Phil Whitten to al CSCAA members.

“What we’ve gotten is a reprieve,” Whitten said. “Now it’s up to us to educate the NCAA as to why implementation of this interpretation would be a disaster for our sport. We need to convince them that swimming needs an exemption from that interpretation." That means that teams are not subject to December's interpretation until March 26.

This “stay of execution” in the words of the NCAA's Wayne Burrow, does not solve the problem but gives coachs an opportunity to educate the NCAA officials as to the reasons why swimming must deserves an exemption.