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BYU Player's Father to Fight NCAA?
By Jeff Call, Deseret News
Sept. 15, 1999 PROVO — If the BYU women's soccer team is not allowed to play in the NCAA Tournament, the father of one of the Cougar players is prepared to take legal action against the NCAA. The NCAA women's soccer and women's basketball committees decided earlier this year that Brigham Young University's refusal to play on Sunday "disrupts the orderly conduct of a championship." Both sports hold their title games on Sunday, and the committees voted not to invite BYU to either postseason tournament. The NCAA's Championships and Competitions Committee meets this week in Indianapolis to review that ban. David Detton, whose daughter, Kristy, is a redshirt player on the Cougar soccer team, works as an attorney for Dorsey & Whitney, an international law firm with offices in Salt Lake City. He has threatened to take the NCAA to court if BYU is kept out of the tournament. Dorsey & Whitney is representing the athletes and coaches of the soccer program, not BYU itself, Detton said. "We're doing this on our own," he explained. "We need to investigate all legal avenues available to us. We are not ruling out any options. We are committed to civil rights and gender-equity issues." The firm has written letters to Women's Soccer Committee Chair Deb Warren, NCAA general counsel Elsa Cole, the Utah congressional delegation, and the U.S. Justice Department. BYU officials, meanwhile, have been arguing the school's case by sending letters to members of the committee to explain the school's position. Utah athletic director Chris Hill is chairman of the Championships and Competitions Committee. Both Detton and BYU President Merrill J. Bateman are hopeful that a compromise can be reached before the Sunday play issue winds up in court. "We think there are some very easy solutions," Bateman said. The soccer championship has been set up for Dec. 5, a Sunday. Ostensibly, that day was chosen to accommodate television, but ESPN has decided it will show the game on a tape-delay basis on Monday. "So why play on Sunday?" Bateman asked. "It doesn't need to be on Sunday. If they insist on keeping Sunday, let us play, and if we advance to the championship, change the game to Monday." If the NCAA is unwilling to change the day, BYU would forfeit and drop out of the tournament, Bateman said. Soccer coach Jennifer Rockwood has written a letter to all her counterparts at NCAA Division I schools asking them to contact members of the Women's Soccer Committee on BYU's behalf. "The possibility of BYU reaching the championship game is not extremely high," she wrote. "The real disruption of the NCAA Tournament would occur if any team that qualified and earned a right to compete was not invited." The Cougars own a 6-0 record in 1999 and were ranked as high as 14th in a preseason poll. They went to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament last year. Concerns for the soccer program extend beyond this season's tournament. "It would have an immediate impact on recruiting," Detton said. "We need to make this change before we lose recruits." Eliminating BYU from postseason play before it begins "imposes a death penalty on our soccer program," Rockwood said. "We've been working very hard to develop our women's sports programs and now the NCAA is levying a heavy penalty on our women's programs."
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