ACC Basketball: The Story of the Rivalries, Traditions, and Scandals of the First Two Decades of the Atlantic Coast Conference

9. The 800 Rule & the Departure of South Carolina

· 309 · 9 THE 800 RULE & THE DEPARTURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA The Atlantic Coast Conference was founded in 1953 in significant part to establish academic integrity and enforce academic standards among its members. One eventual result of those goals was that the ACC decided in 1964 that football and basketball prospects had to score at least 800 on the SAT to qualify for an athletic scholarship. In 1966, it extended this policy to athletes who participated, with or without financial aid, in any intercollegiate sport. During the late 1960s, the 800 rule generated what the Raleigh News and Observer called the “biggest, most controversial, technicalityfilled issue in recent league history.” The controversy divided the ACC and threatened to cause its dissolution. After much turmoil, the conference decided to keep the 800 requirement even at the cost of losing one of its charter members, and, consequently, the University of South Carolina with- 310 · THE 800 RULE & THE DEPARTURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA drew in 1971. Within a short time, the 800 rule, after triggering a major uproar and much ill will, was struck down by a federal court.1 The 800 rule was a culmination of the ACC’s commitment to promoting academic integrity by setting uniform admission standards for athletes. When it agreed on its original minimum SAT score of 750 in 1960, it was the first conference in the country to adopt such a requirement. Even after other leagues approved similar rules, the ACC’s 800 standard stood alone as the most rigorous among major college conferences. The rule prevented some basketball prodigies, including Pete Maravich, Mike Grosso, and Herm Gilliam, from playing at ACC schools. But in general, conference members met the requirement with room to spare. In 1962, when the 750 rule still applied, freshman basketball players had average SAT scores that ranged from a low of 883 at South Carolina to a high of 1,135 at Duke. By 1966, the average scores for freshman basketball players at most conference schools had improved. They ranged from a low of 948 at Wake Forest to a high of 1,207 at North Carolina.2 The NCAA’s 1.6 Rule After the NCAA decided in 1956 to authorize its members to provide athletic scholarships regardless of need, it adopted the term “student-athlete” for those who received financial assistance.The term was a “mandated substitute ” for commonly used expressions such as “player” that the NCAA imposed. By the early 1960s, the organization was becoming increasingly concerned that too many schools placed a higher value on their studentathletes ’ achievements in sports than on their qualifications for and performances in the classroom. In October 1963, the NCAA appointed a committee to investigate whether it was possible to develop a way “to determine the academic potential of students” and to set a national standard “for awarding financial aid to student athletes.” The committee reported in July 1964 that it was possible “to predict first year college grade point averages” on the basis of high school class rank and scores on the SAT or the American College Testing Program (ACT). At its annual meeting in January 1965, the NCAA passed a rule that members would be barred from participation in any NCAA-sponsored event, including bowl games, the national basketball championship, and television appearances, unless they limited athletic scholarships to incoming students who met a minimum academic standard . The standard was a projected college grade point average of 1.6 on a 4.0 system, which was the equivalent of a C-minus. The NCAA also re- THE 800 RULE & THE DEPARTURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA · 311 quired that athletes maintain a grade point average of at least 1.6 as college students to keep their scholarships and participate in intercollegiate sports. The new rules became effective on January 1, 1966.3 The NCAA’s member institutions strongly supported the 1.6 rule. “The solid majority of colleges believe this rule in the long run will do as much as any rule the NCAA has ever passed to improve intercollegiate athletics,” NCAA executive director Walter Byers commented in 1966. “It is based on the premise that if a college wishes to compete with its sister institutions for national championship honors, it should be willing to certify what its academic procedures and requirements are, confirm them to other members and agree upon a minimum level of academic attainment for athletes.” Nevertheless, the 1.6 requirement produced...