The Gym Bag: CIS Scholarships

Recently, rumblings have surfaced regarding the possibility of CIS scholarship rules being changed to accommodate more flexibility for individual programs to work with. That's good news, but it raises the question — why did it take so long? One has to wonder if Simon Fraser University would've been so keen to make the move to the NCAA if the CIS had made scholarship rule changes a priority earlier. SFU hasn't been the only school that has been frustrated with the relatively restrictive scholarship rules the CIS currently institutes — fellow B.C. school UBC has long been on the list of schools looking for scholarship rule changes.

The comments from CIS President Clint Hamilton signal an opening to changes when it comes to what sort of leeway CIS schools could have in distributing their athletic scholarship funds, as far as having the option of providing full-ride scholarships which they currently can't do. The overall pool of scholarship money for athletes wouldn't change, just the way in which schools could dish it out. It's time this far-from-earth-shattering change is made, since the flexibility it would provide would only help keep elite university athletes in Canada. Even if changes only keep a handful of our best athletes in Canada initially, and out of the NCAA, it's worth it since this will only lead to a better product, and in the future even more players deciding to stay north of the 49th parallel.