| | Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA will not exclude any school in
South Carolina from consideration as a Division I baseball tournament host because of that state's controversy over the Confederate flag.
The organization's baseball committee met on Monday to discuss
which schools will receive letters soliciting bids to host NCAA
regional and super-regional games in May and June.
"They listened to a report on it. There was a brief
discussion," NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro said. "We are not having
this (flag) discussion in our governance bodies until later this
summer, but it's our understanding the South Carolina legislature
has in fact voted to remove the flag from the dome."
In South Carolina, a bill passed by the state senate last
Thursday would take the flag off the Statehouse dome and out of the
House and Senate chambers, but place a similar flag behind the
Confederate Soldier Monument on the statehouse grounds. The NAACP,
which organized a tourism boycott of the state, is among groups
that regard the flag as a symbol of slavery.
Flag supporters say it represents Southern heritage.
"There will be no states excluded," Renfro said. "I don't
think we are releasing exactly who we are sending the letter to,
but I can tell you no school in South Carolina will be excluded
because of the flag issue."
South Carolina, ranked No. 1 this week by Baseball America, was
last chosen in 1985 but has tried to upgrade its baseball
facilities and has submitted bids for regionals the past two
seasons, athletic director Mike McGee said.
Clemson, ranked No. 9, was a regional host the past two years.
Each of the Division I baseball committee's 10 members was
assigned specific parts of the country and specific conferences.
During Monday's meeting, conducted by telephone, the group went
through each conference to consider which schools might be likely
candidates to host one of 16 regionals on May 26-28 or
super-regionals June 2-4.
"I would say, conservatively, probably half of the 281 schools
will get a mailing," baseball media coordinator Jim Wright said.
"It's only April, and although in certain parts of the country
teams have played a lot of games, but, say, the Big Ten, they
probably haven't played more than 15 or 20 games, so it's pretty
hard at this point to speculate where these teams are going to be
in a month.
"Once we've gone through the entire country, and through every
regional, then our championship staff will then send out these
mailings to those schools that have been noted in the discussion,"
he said.
The letters were expected to be mailed later Monday or on
Tuesday, Renfro said.
"Then they send the questionnaire back in giving us some
indication whether they're interested in hosting. Those come back
in by April 28," Renfro said. "Generally we get about 30 or 40
that express interest, and for those we'll send out a detailed
budget request."
The 16 regional sites will be announced on May 15 and the eight
super-regional sites will be announced May 29. The College World
Series will be in Omaha, Neb., on June 9-17.
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