ECU allocates more money for athletic scholarships

East Carolina became the first member in the American Athletic Conference to announce its plans to provide athletes with the full cost-of-attendance as part of their athletic scholarships.

This means that in addition to covering the room and board, books, and tuition costs that are already covered with current scholarships, the athletics department is now picking up the bill on other expenses too, which include academic-related supplies and transportation to and from campus.

“Generally, we like to be first. We like to be leaders in things,” Shelly Binegar, ECU’s Associate Director of Athletics, told The East Carolinian in a phone interview on Monday. “We’ve been talking about this and working on this for months.”

Scholarship athletes in the football and basketball programs will receive the full amount of these cost-of-attendance benefits starting this fall, which is set at $4,025 per scholarship. Athletes in the rest of ECU’s 19 varsity sports will be initially allotted $2,025 in a two-year allocation plan, but are scheduled to receive the same, full amount as the players in revenue-generating programs in 2016-2017.

Director of Athletics Jeff Compher, who is about to complete his second full year at ECU, sees Monday’s decision as a recruiting tool for all of the department’s programs.

"To compete on a national level and win championships requires a significant investment in the well-being of our student-athletes, more now than ever,” said Compher in a statement. "The recruiting process, similar to the entire model of collegiate athletics, has evolved to the point where it is imperative to provide this support.

“The landscape in which we live continues to change, but our resolve to remain at the forefront and in a leadership position should not.”

The decision to raise the value of NCAA scholarships was passed by a 79-1 vote in January. However, only schools that belong to Power Five conferences — Big Ten, ACC, SEC, PAC 12 and Big XII — were mandated to pay the full cost-of-attendance beginning this fall.

Since ECU is not a member of one of these leagues, it was not required to act. But behind the strong encouragement of the American Conference’s commissioner Mike Aresco, the Pirates took on the commitment in an effort to realistically compete, long term, with the top athletic programs in the country.

“That’s one thing the Power Five can’t use against us,” sixth-year ECU football coach Ruffin McNeill said. “Cost of attendance was a great addition today and we needed that. I appreciate the administration and Mike Aresco, our commissioner, for making sure everyone in our conference abided by that.”

One of McNeill’s players, punter Worth Gregory, added, “I think it’s a great thing that the NCAA has finally decided to do and they should have done it a long while back.”

According to Binegar, the heightened value of scholarships will require the athletics department to come up with at least $970,000 in scholarship fundraising. ECU is currently on the books for 240.2 scholarships spread across all of its 19 varsity sports combined.