The Butler athletics department has seen three of its associate athletic directors leave for other universities this school year.

Beth Goetz, associate athletic director for administration, announced last week she would be taking a position with the University of Minnesota.

Tom Crowley, former associate athletic director for internal operations, was named athletic director at Niagara University in October.

Bill Lynch, former associate athletic director for development, left in December to become DePauw’s new football coach.

The remaining athletics department employees have taken on additional duties this year.

“We have such a great team environment in the department that everybody has been more than willing to step up and take more responsibilities during that time just to make sure that we’re operating at the level we need to,” Goetz said.

Goetz said she has been handling the financial area of the athletics department.

“I’ve been working a little bit more on the financial side,” she said. “So working with the department budget, overseeing financial aid and those types of areas.”

Goetz will begin serving as an associate athletics director at Minnesota in March.

The athletic department hired a temporary staff member after Crowley left to help out with his former duties for the remainder of the academic year.

“The plan for that was to set up this interim plan that we’re currently operating under and to move toward a more permanent one as the spring rolled around, which,” Athletic Director Barry Collier said. “So, we’ll be solidifying that shortly.”

Mike Freeman, associate athletic director for external operations, has inherited Lynch’s responsibilities in the development area until someone is hired to the position full time.

“That was part of my position before we added an associate AD of development about two years ago,” Freeman said. “We’ve been able to pick it up here and there, but there’s no doubt there’s a lot of work to be done, and we’re still pitching in to get it all done.”

Collier said a new full-time associate athletic director for development would be hired within the next several weeks.

Freeman said having Goetz leave would not be any different for the athletics department to handle since two other associate athletic directors have already departed this school year.

“Since that’s so recent, Barry (Collier) is still trying to figure out exactly what direction we’re going to go in terms of getting everything done,” Freeman said. “We were already working under a situation where it’s all hands on deck to get the work done and make sure that student-athletes have a great experience and that we accomplish our goals.

“So I’m sure that it will just be more of the same in the interim before we can fill those positions.”

The Butler athletics department is still waiting to hear whether it is compliant with Title IX.

Title IX is legislation that is meant to ensure equal opportunity in athletics for women.

Last May, the university entered into a resolution agreement with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education to become Title IX compliant.

Butler had a Sept. 1 deadline to provide documentation that it was in compliance and treating all athletes equally.

Beth Goetz, associate athletic director for administration, said the report has been submitted, and the athletics department is now waiting for a decision from the Office for Civil Rights.

“We believe that we are in compliance,” Goetz said. “But if they find we aren’t, we are going to take the necessary steps to correct it.”

The Office for Civil Rights considers the situation an open case with the documents still in review. As a result, the office cannot discuss the specifics of the case or any findings to this point, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Education.

The Office for Civil Rights requested information about participation numbers and financial aid.

During the 2010-11 school year, women made up 59.6 percent of Butler’s full-time undergraduate students and only 36.5 percent of athletes.

At the same time, women athletes received 53.4 percent of the department’s financial aid.

Title IX requires that the ratio of women in sports is substantially proportionate to the undergraduate enrollment.

In a situation where these numbers are not proportionate, the university can demonstrate compliance in other ways.

“Those numbers demonstrate we are not meeting the standard,” Goetz said. “But we believe our non-discriminatory factors, when considered, deem us as compliant.”

The athletics department evaluates gender equality on a regular basis. Multiple internal reviews and an outside study by Ice Miller have been conducted to validate the findings.

“We believe we offer every sport in which there is an interest and ability on campus,” Goetz said.

She said that this is the reason the department believes the Office for Civil Rights will determine that Butler is Title IX compliant.

Regardless of the numbers, Erik Fromm, junior men’s basketball player and member of the student athlete advisory council, said that the treatment of the athletes has always been equal.

“I’m just one person, and I don’t know all the numbers,” Fromm said, “but it’s never been a question of equality, not in athletics and not in academics.”

In her four years of experience, Devin Brierly, graduate student and basketball and softball player, said there was no indication of unfair treatment between males and females because of gender.

“We have always been treated very fair when it came to everything, whether it was trips and equipment or something else,” Brierly said. “It was going to be different with men’s basketball, but that’s because of what they accomplished, not anything else.”

In the 2011 fiscal year, the Office for Civil Rights received a total of 7,841 complaints about Title IX violations across the country, according to a U.S. Department of Education spokesman.

Only six of those complaints found an institution to be in violation of Title IX.

The athletics department asked why it was under review, and Goetz said it was told it was random review.

The Office for Civil Rights confirmed this and said it is trying to be proactive in guaranteeing equality for all athletes by initiating compliance reviews.

There is no official timeline for a decision from the Office for Civil Rights regarding Butler’s compliance, but Goetz said the department will continue to take the matter seriously.

“We want to provide every opportunity for every student-athlete that we can,” Goetz said. “Even without Title IX, we want to make sure everyone is treated equally and fairly.”

Transferring from one school to another midway through college can be exasperating. Add to the process the complications of being a full-time student-athlete, and individuals have an entirely new challenge on their hands.

Butler student-athletes who have transferred from other schools can attest to this.

Junior baseball first baseman Jimmy Risi referred to his transfer process as “an emotional time,” describing his transition from one school to another in the span of 48 hours. Despite deciding early on that she would be at Butler, sophomore women’s basketball player Daress McClung said the process can be “very stressful,” especially if one does not know what school to attend.

While not everyone has to go through such a quick or tolling jump, the struggle is evident for both incoming and outgoing students.

There are a few key reasons that a transferring student-athlete would run into problems changing institutions.

Most of these—such as low grade point averages and missing credits—are on a student’s own account.

Sometimes, there are more challenging issues.

In order for Butler to be able to speak with a potential transfer student, their previous institution has to grant permission to contact.

The following release of the athlete can make things even more complicated.

“At Butler, we feel like we want to do what’s in the best interest of our students,” Associate Athletic Director Beth Goetz said. “If that means their continued participation and attendance at Butler, that’s great. If it is someplace else, then we are typically supportive of that.

“We have not denied anyone’s permission to contact at all.”

Sometimes, an institution will not release a student, which often leads to an array of problems, appeals and hearings.

Regular NCAA rules must also be considered to determine if a student can start competing immediately, has to sit a year or, in the worst case scenario, sit two years.

McClung, for example, would have had to sit out two years if she had transferred from Cincinnati to another Big East school.

“They have different rules that make it nearly impossible for kids to transfer,” McClung said.

The basic rule is that athletes must sit a year unless they meet an exception.

In-league transfers are more complicated, and sometimes schools will refuse to release an athlete simply because they do not want students following them.

Even rivalries can come into play. Recently, a transfer from Ohio was almost not released because he intended to go to Illinois, a rival institution.

Sophomore soccer player Jamie Vollmer was fortunate enough that he did not have to sit a season after transferring from Butler to Indiana.

He transferred from Butler after his first year, asking for permission to contact four schools. He was allowed to speak with three, with the exception being North Carolina State.

N.C. State is where former Butler men’s soccer coach Kelly Findley is currently employed.

“There was just a lot of uncertainty and unanswered questions,” Vollmer said. “I just decided that I would look around. My transfer was athletics-based, but I also wanted to do physical therapy (a program which Butler does not offer). I decided I could be more successful transferring to IU.”

Vollmer, who plays under scholarship at Indiana, said Butler told him they did not want the whole team jumping to N.C. State after Findley left.

Matt Hedges, a former teammate of Vollmer, also transferred the year Findley left.

Hedges jumped to North Carolina and now plays for Major League Soccer team FC Dallas.

“I was allowed to appeal, but I just thought better of it and didn’t want to deal with it,” Vollmer said. “Besides that, everything went smoothly.”

Goetz said the athletics department’s general philosophy is to help transferring athletes in all cases.

“I don’t even need to know why you want to transfer, but we may ask because we want to continue to get better,” Goetz said.

For the most part, incoming Butler transfers said the same thing: Coaches are generally cooperative but wish their athletes would not leave.

Some students leave their schools because of academics, some leave for exposure and some leave to be back home.

However, they all go through the same process to get to their new institution.

“I loved my school and my friends and everything like that,” McClung said, “and I was playing. But Butler really cares about its players. They want me to get a better education.  I just felt it would be better to transfer.

“This is the best decision I think I’ve made as a whole, and I’ve made some pretty big decisions.”

Despite the high demands of Division I athletics, Butler has been very successful with placing students on the Horizon League Honor Roll.

This past fall, Butler had eight students on Academic All-League teams.  Last year, 34 athletes received this honor between all of Butler’s athletic teams.

Butler also had an Academic All-American last year in basketball player Matt Howard, bringing the school’s all-time total to 45.

This is high in comparison to universities like Connecticut, which boasts a student population of more than 22,000 and has only 48 Academic All-Americans in school history.

In some cases, athletes come to Butler for academics first.

For junior golfer and pharmacy major Matt Vitale, his education was the priority in his college choice, and he later decided to walk on to the golf team.

“I came to Butler very educationally focused,” Vitale said, “and that is definitely the feel I got from the athletics department as well.”

The athletics department places an emphasis on academic success.

Student-athletes are required as first and second-year students to attend study tables and have both their academic and athletic advisers monitoring their academic progress.

The mission statement of the Butler University athletics department maintains that its goal is to support the university’s purpose by providing exceptional educational and athletic experiences for all student-athletes.

Student-athletes must meet the requirements of any student at Butler. They are each required to take at least 12 credit hours, but they average 15 hours per semester.

The average GPA of all 359 Butler athletes is 3.24.  The minimum GPA required to remain eligible to play is 2.0.

“In general, we want to make sure we continue to maintain the same level of success or higher than our student body does,” Beth Goetz, associate athletic director for administration, said. “For a school[‘s athletes] to have a 3.2 GPA is really impressive.”

Last year, there were 127 student athletes enrolled in majors within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 121 in the College of Business, 50 in the College of Education, 33 in the College of Communication, two in the Jordan College of Fine Arts, 17 declared as pre-pharmacy  and nine in graduate studies.

There is a 76 percent graduation rate over a six-year average for student-athletes, the same percentage as Butler students overall.

Junior volleyball player and chemistry major Rachel Barber said that she will be taking 18 credit hours next fall and that many of her teammates will be taking summer courses.

“You definitely load up [credit hours] in the spring and summer,” Barber said. “Our coach highly advises us to take summer classes.”

This helps ease the stress of performing both in the classroom and on the court.

Barber said she thinks of volleyball as a job and that she spends 30 to 40 hours in the gym during the season in addition to travel.

“You have to be so mentally tough to do this,” Barber said. “You just have so many people that want you to succeed.”

Athletes are never allowed to miss class for a practice, which results in many teams being forced to practice without all of their members most of the time.

“[Student-athletes are] here to be students first, so when they’re in class we adjust and either practice without them or try and move practice around,” Goetz said. “I don’t think we have one team that practices with everyone every day of the week.”

One of the biggest testaments to the success in the classroom for Butler’s student-athletes is their own satisfaction with their education.

Even in 2007, when senior exit reviews revealed that only 50 percent of student-athletes would come back to Butler to participate in athletics, many said they still enjoyed their academic experience.

“There was almost unanimous favorable opinion of their educational experience while they were here,” Athletic Director Barry Collier said. “If there is anything to be happy about, that’s it.”

In the past decade, Butler teams have captured 26 conference championships and have made appearances in NCAA national championship tournaments in men’s and women’s basketball, men’s soccer, volleyball, men’s cross country, lacrosse and baseball.

Butler has won the James J. McCafferty trophy a league-record eight times, most recently in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons. It is awarded annually by the Horizon League for excellence in all sports.

In addition to the athletic success of Butler’s teams, there has also been individual academic success by the school’s student-athletes.

According to Goetz, the athletics department takes pride in its student-athletes for both their work as athletes and as students.

“Butler is really a special place in that the institution attracts people that are dedicated to their academic endeavors,” Goetz said. “To be successful at [athletics and academics] is just something that we just get to be so proud of.”

Butler basketball players have seen several changes to their respective programs in recent years.

They can now add a change in their scholarships to the list.

Beginning in the fall of 2012, men and women participating in the sport will receive a $2,000 stipend each academic year to help cover the de facto price of being a college student.

“I’m really excited,” junior forward Becca Bornhorst said. “How could you not be?”

The benefit was conferred by a unanimous vote of Horizon League athletic directors last week.

On Oct. 27, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved the option for conferences to add up to $2,000 each a year for athletic scholarships.

The stipends are the first major change to college athletic scholarships in nearly 40 years.

Photo by Maria Porter

“Great idea,” sophomore forward Khyle Marshall said. “You’re not working, not making any money, but you still need money for food. Having that extra money in our pocket will be a benefit.”

NCAA President Mark Emmert told the Houston Economic Club earlier this month that the stipends reconcile the difference between full rides and what it really costs students to go to college.

Emmert said the stipends do not pay students for athletic competition, adding that “pay for play” compensation has no place in college sports.

Butler’s estimated cost-of-attendance gap is $2,050 per athlete, according to a study by the National College Players Association.  The COA gap is the average amount of expenses incurred by a student-athlete beyond what a full scholarship covers.

“Gas and food are the main two [expenses],” Bornhorst said.

Among Division I schools, the lowest COA gap is $200 for athletes at South Carolina Upstate. Arkansas-Little Rock has the highest shortfall at $10,962.  Butler’s gap is about $900 less than the national average.

Butler will have to pay for the new allowance. For 13 male players and 15 female players, this amounts to a new annual expense of $56,000.

“I don’t think we know exactly [how the stipends will be funded],” Associate Athletic Director Beth Goetz said. “We’ll find a way within our given budget.”

The Horizon League offered its schools the choice to provide stipends for athletes in other sports, though under federal Title IX law, the stipends must be distributed proportionately to the ratio of male and female student-athletes.

“That’s not something we’ve talked about doing,” Goetz said of providing stipends to other athletes.

Athletic Director Barry Collier, who could not be reached for comment, told ESPN in July, when the proposal was still being debated, that Butler did not want to apply COA stipends to some athletes and not others.

“For us, it would have to be across the board,” Collier said at the time.  “That’s just part of our commitment as a university, that we wouldn’t do for one sport what we couldn’t do for all of them.”

But the finalized NCAA rules say stipends may only be given to athletes on full scholarship.

Beyond volleyball, which has 12 full rides, Butler has only a “handful” of other athletes on full scholarship, Goetz said.

From 1956 to 1972, the NCAA permitted a $15 monthly stipend during the academic year.

Photo by Maria Porter

In the decades since, scholarship players have been limited to reimbursement for tuition, room and board, education-related fees and books.  The NCAA has not covered the full cost of attendance since the statistic was legally recognized by Congress in 1986.

Many have argued that students deserve additional rewards because of the financial windfall college sports has become.

Men’s basketball, in particular, brings big profit to the NCAA and needed funds to individual colleges.

According to NCAA documents, $13.8 million was returned to the Horizon League in April based on its schools’ degree of tournament success from 2005-2010.

The NCAA paid out $180.5 million overall.

Television contracts add to this profit, as CBS and Turner Sports will pay the NCAA $10.8 billion for the rights to broadcast March Madness until 2024.

Stipends are a way to give some dollars to student-athletes and will likely help in recruiting.

“If you’re going to compete on the national level,” Goetz said, “it becomes a competitive advantage to those able to offer it.”

It’s up to players how to spend these stipends. Marshall said he already has an idea.

“I’ve always wanted an iPad,” he said.

Bornhorst said the cash will make her more independent.

“It’s not having to call my parents every two weeks,” she said, “and saying, ‘Mom, can you put money in my account so I can get groceries?’”

Players rely on referees to make calls concerning traveling, goaltending and palming on the court, but they look to the athletics department to help with judgment calls off the court.

Associate Athletic Director Beth Goetz, whose job includes making sure all conference, NCAA and institutional rules are followed from the recruiting process onward, said the men’s basketball team’s runs to the NCAA National Championship game have led to her spending more time on compliance with team members.

“It’s not that when you’re not in the limelight that you’re not concerned about rules, because you always are, but the success of men’s basketball raises different questions,” Goetz said.

Athletic Director Barry Collier said the department has had to deal with increased external interest in the program but that the focus on compliance has grown at every school regardless of size or notoriety.

“The NCAA wants you to be more thorough than ever before,” Collier said.

A heightened sense of compliance has reached the top levels of all colleges and universities in light of recent scandals at Ohio State and Miami in which football players received extra benefits and allegedly broke numerous rules.

“Your president wants to know what you’re doing, and it has definitely trickled down to all institutions, even though the big cases have been through Bowl Championship Series institutions,” Goetz said.

For players the main rules cover receiving benefits, handling speaking requests, keeping others from profiting by using their name or likeness and avoiding banned substances. Coaches’ rules are focused mostly on recruiting.

Penalties for noncompliance can include mandatory education, a reduction in the number of contacts a coach can have with a prospect, repayment, fines, loss of games or permanent ineligibility.

Goetz said she credits coach Brad Stevens and the Butler environment with creating an atmosphere of compliance on the men’s basketball team.

“Coach Stevens creates an environment that is ethical,” Goetz said. “It’s part of our mantra, whether spoken or unspoken, that we’re going to do it the right way and win the right way.”

Goetz said growing attention to Butler also brings greater support from donors and boosters. Educating these fans becomes part of NCAA compliance, since the recent scandals were caused or exacerbated by donors offering players illegal benefits.

Associate Athletic Director Mike Freeman oversaw the Bulldog Club until last March when Associate Athletic Director Bill Lynch took over. The Bulldog Club is a group for individuals looking to donate to the athletic department, and Freeman said it has grown from about 1,500 to 1,900 members in past years to nearly 2,800 members.

To keep all donors and boosters aware, the athletics department sends out periodic newsletters that outline compliance and donation rules. Freeman said the newsletters generate a lot of questions, but answering them is an important part of the athletics department’s duty.

“Our members and boosters are outstanding, but part of our mission is to make sure they do the right thing, just as our student-athletes do,” he said.

Goetz said she expects new rules to come from the NCAA in the next year that focus on extra benefits and how donors interact with players and recruits.

“The reason you see all these problems with big programs is because they’re in the limelight,” Goetz said. “People and donors become very attached, and the success of their team becomes this goal that they want to be a part of and contribute to and control—sometimes in ways that aren’t legislated, aren’t healthy and aren’t part of their purview.”

Goetz meets with all Butler teams at the beginning of the year and then meets with them periodically throughout the season. There are also monthly compliance sessions with coaches and yearly meetings with all non-coaching staff members.

The system is set up so that universities monitor themselves and self-report violations. Butler has never had a major violation, although it has reported some secondary violations—most of which were inadvertent, Goetz said.

“If we don’t submit violations, we’re probably not doing our job because [the rule book] is pretty thick,” Goetz said.