NCAA Convenes in Chicago Today, May Ban Ivies from Tournaments

The National Collegiate Athletic Association starts its annual convention today--a meeting that may end up with Harvard and all other Ivy League colleges barred from participation in NCAA championship events.

The threat comes as a result of the Ivies' announced refusal to go along with the NCAA's attempt to keep its members out of track meets sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Union.

The NCAA circulated a memorandum last month urging its members to compete only in meets sponsored by the United States Track and Field Federation, a group set up by the NCAA to rival the AAU.

First Thoughts

At the time, it was not thought that NCAA would itself punish colleges which violated the memorandum, but would leave enforcement to the USTFF.

Earlier this week, however, NCAA officials told the Associated Press that any schools violating the rule would be liable to the same punishment as colleges who violated football recruiting regulations--suspension from NCAA championships in all sports and from bowl games.

Ivy League schools were barred from bowl games in any event by the agreement that set up the league. Yale's swimming team and Harvard's track team, however, would field strong entries in their respective NCAA championships, and the Ivy League champion normally plays in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Yale is First

No Ivy school except Yale has yet violated the NCAA's edict. Yale entered a New York AAU development meet last December, on the same night the Ivy League agreed not to go along with the NCAA's rule.

Harvard's first test would come a week from Saturday when the team is scheduled to enter the Boston Garden Knights of Columbus meet, an annual feature of the winter schedule. When the NCAA first told its members to stay out of AAU-sponsored meets, in 1962, Harvard kept out of the K of C meet. At that time no colleges opposed the NCAA, which later agreed to postpone its fight with the AAU until after the 1964 Olympics.