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Practice Limitations
To ensure that student-athletes are able to balance the demands of school, athletics and personal obligations, the NCAA established limits on the number of required hours of countable athletically related activities for student-athletes. These limits vary based on whether a given sport is in-season or out-of-season during the academic year or in the summer vacation period. Each sport has a limited number of days that it can be in-season and the beginning and end of these in-season periods are established by the coaches before each academic year. In many cases, the in-season period is divided into two parts: one in the fall semester, and one in the spring. All competition must take place during an in-season period.RARA
Required athletically related activities (RARA) include any activities, including those that are countable in the daily and weekly limitations that are required of student-athletes. Such activities include, but are not limited to:
- Compliance meetings,
- Promotional activities,
- Team building activities,
- Recruiting activities,
- Media activities,
- Fundraising activities,
- Community service, and
- Team travel.
CARA
Countable athletically related activities (CARA) include any required activity with an athletics purpose at the direction of or supervised by a coach. Examples of countable activities include, but are not limited to:
- Practice,
- Competition,
- Film review, and
- Strength & conditioning activities.
VARA
Voluntary athletically related activities (VARA) must meet the following requirements:
- Can’t be required to report back to a coach;
- Initiated by you;
- Attendance and participation can’t be recorded; and
- No rewards or penalties related to participation or lack thereof.
Not CARA or RARA
Examples of things that are not CARA or RARA are:
- Health & medical activities,
- Academic activities, and
- VARA.
Off Days
- In-season: 1 off day/week even during preseason and vacation periods
- In-season: If you have three contests/dates of competition in a seven-day period, your coach can give you two days off the week before or after and no days of during the seven-day period with three contests/dates of competition.
- Out-of-season: 2 off days/week
- 7 days off after season is over
- 14 additional off days during the academic year
- Required life skills activities involving more than just your team may occur on an off day that is not part of the 7 off days after your season ends.
In-Season
- No more than 4 hours/day and 20 hours/week of CARA
- No CARA after a competition
- A competition always counts as 3 hours of CARA
- Practice hour restrictions do not apply during preseason (before school starts) or during vacation periods
- No missed class time for CARA
- No CARA between midnight and 5 a.m. with limited exceptions
- A travel day can’t be an off day except for when return travel to campus occurs between midnight and 5 a.m. provided no RARA occurs for a continuous 24-hour period after you return to campus.
Out-of-Season
- No more than 8 hours/week of CARA
- The only permissible activities are conditioning, weight training and, for sports other than football, skill instruction (i.e., practice). Football student-athletes may participate in film review and walk-throughs instead of skill instruction (i.e., practice).
- No more than two hours of skill instruction (or film review and walk-throughs for football) with the coaches each week.
- No CARA beginning the week prior to finals through the end of finals.
8-Hours of no RARA
All RARA, other than competition, is prohibited during a continuous 8-hour period between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Exempted activities from the continuous 8-hour period restriction include:
- Travel to away competitions after release form home competitions;
- Participation in a regular season multi-day contest, event or tournament, or postseason competition;
- Activities in the locale of away competitions on the day before the competition;
- Recruiting activities (i.e., student host duties);
- Participation in required life skills and team building activities; and
- Health and medical activities or academically related activities.
Playing and Practice Seasons Rules Education
Click Here to Review the Practice Logs for Your Team
