Rice pleased with NCAA settlement

Steve Carp

Thursday, April 22, 1999 | 11:04 a.m.

One day, Travis Rice will be walking around some campus with an armload of books, and he'll be able to thank the NCAA for helping to pay his college education.

And it will have nothing to do with whether or not he has a scholarship, but the fact his father had to get by on a poverty-level salary for a few years before justice was done.

Travis' dad, UNLV assistant basketball coach Dave Rice, is one of some 2,000 coaches who will find something extra in their Christmas stocking come December. The NCAA has finally figured out how to pay the settlement of $54.5 million, after losing a judgement in a lawsuit that stated the NCAA could not limit an assistant coach's earnings.

A member of Bill Bayno's staff for the last four seasons and, before that, an assistant to Tim Grgurich, Rice was trying to get by on $16,000 a year. He admitted that times were tough for he and his wife, Mindy. But the money aside, he's most happy about a bad rule being changed.

"I've said all along the biggest thing was getting the rule changed so assistant coaches could earn a fair wage," Rice said Wednesday. "It was a tremendous hardship for my wife and me during those years when there was a restriction on the amount I could earn."

Rice said he'll personally never see the money and that it's going to his son's college fund. But he also has concerns about the long-term impact of the settlement. Many Division I schools will have to pay as much as $200,000 to help pay what the coaches won, and it could come at the expense of certain sports being dropped.

"I have mixed feelings about it," Rice said. "While those of us who were restricted earnings coaches are certainly entitled to some settlement, I'm concerned about where the money's coming from.

"I can see the big picture. I don't want it to be at the expense of other sports programs."