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How Texas Tech plans to make athletes whole after it ends Alston awards program
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- How Texas Tech plans to make athletes whole after it ends Alston awards program
When the Texas Tech athletics department eliminates Alston award payments next year, athletics director Kirby Hocutt said Tech will continue to make athletes financially whole who factor the awards into their budgeting for essential expenses.
Tech has budgeted about $1.7 million each of the past three school years for the Alston awards under what it calls the Strive Program. It will sunset the program after the spring semester, deputy athletics director Jonathan Botros said recently, because those payments will count against the projected $20.5 million in annual revenue sharing expected to begin on July 1.
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Hocutt said he doesn't want those athletes to be worse off as a result.
"A decision we made is that any athlete going forward, when we eliminate the Alston awards, they would receive an NIL revenue contract for the minimum of the amount of the Alston award they were receiving," Hocutt said. "So any student-athlete receiving Alston will receive at least that much next year in revenue-share contract.
"A lot of them have to make decisions on housing, their tuition bill if they're on equivalency (partial scholarship), to plan appropriately. We didn't want anybody to not have those dollars that they had planned for through Alston."
More: Kirby Hocutt details Texas Tech athletics plan for revenue sharing, scholarships
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The Texas Tech Red Raiders masked rider enters the field before a game between the West Virginia Mountaineers and the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Jones AT&T Stadium and Cody Campbell Field.
Tech has paid qualified scholarship athletes a baseline amount of $1,990 at the end of a semester for being academically eligible, on a path to graduate, in good standing on a team roster and not in the NCAA transfer portal. They've been able to earn up to $1,000 more based on hitting grade-point average increments, performing five hours of community service and taking part in NIL education and personal and career development programs.
Meeting every requirement is worth $2,990 in a semester, $5,980 in an academic year. That's the maximum amount established by the unanimous 2021 Supreme Court ruling in NCAA v. Alston.
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Under the ruling, the NCAA could no longer prohibit schools from providing non-cash education-related benefits to athletes or from providing cash or cash-like awards to athletes for academic achievement in an annual amount up to $5,980. Previously, NCAA rules capped the amount schools could offer athletes at full cost of attendance.
Tech's policy disqualifies for Alston consideration an athlete having his or name in the transfer portal before semester final exams are over. That's at times been a deterrent to players initiating the transfer process the day a portal window opens. The current football portal window opened Dec. 9, and Tech's last day of fall-semester finals was Dec. 10.
More: How Texas Tech football's top-ranked portal class pushes 20-plus onto roster bubble
More: Judge gives preliminary approval for NCAA settlement allowing revenue-sharing with athletes
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Federal Judge Claudia Wilken gave preliminary approval on Oct. 7 to the proposed settlement in House v. NCAA. If she gives final approval on April 7, new roster limits and revenue sharing would take effect on July 1.
Schools opting in can share up to 22% of the average of power-conference schools' revenue. That amount is expected to be $20.5 million but could be adjusted after schools file annual financial reports to the NCAA in January.
"That's what the NCAA and the Power 4 conferences have advised us their calculations indicate that number will be," Hocutt said. "Our financial reporting to the NCAA is due, I believe Jan. 15, on financial data. The final number will be produced thereafter. But we've been communicated that we should plan for the $20.5 million being the 22%."
Tech wants to give coaches maximum flexibility to allocate the $20.5 million however they see fit. In addition to discontinuing Alston payments, Tech also isn't adding any new scholarships, though it's allowed by the settlement proposal, because any new scholarship spending up to $2.5 million also reduces the revenue-share pool.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: How Texas Tech plans to make athletes whole after it ends Alston awards
