Displaced transfers must still sit out

Division I basketball and football players from schools closed by Hurricane Katrina will still have to sit out for a year if they transfer to one of the many colleges that have offered admission, NCAA president Myles Brand said Tuesday.

The NCAA said last month that it would bend some rules to help students and schools deal with the hurricane, including letting students compete without attending classes.

But during an appearance at the University of Rhode Island, Brand said the only rule the NCAA would not bend was the one that requires Division I basketball, football and hockey players to sit one year if they transfer to another Division I school. In other sports, Division I athletes can transfer and play immediately at another Division I school if they receive a release from the original university.

Brand said the decision was made because the members of some teams, including at least one from Tulane, planned to transfer together to one school. That could lead to the new school taking the entire team as its own, Brand said.

"Let me call that athletic looting, to be provocative, and we won't stand for that," he said.

Some coaches at hurricane-affected schools in and around New Orleans had complained to the NCAA that coaches at other schools had tried to raid their teams and recruit their players, NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro said.

Renfro said the NCAA expects many hurricane-affected schools to continue to compete this year — even if they don't have classes.

Other schools affected by the hurricane include LSU and New Orleans.

The NCAA has eased some other rules, including those prohibiting athletes from taking financial assistance from outside sources, and those that require students to be enrolled full-time at their college and university.

In other Katrina developments:

• Experts will have to clean and decontaminate the Louisiana Superdome before the stadium's future can be determined.

Superdome officials took their first look at the Superdome, which was wrecked while housing thousands of people seeking refuge from Hurricane Katrina, on Friday. Those officials said Tuesday that mounds of trash have been removed from the Superdome's concourses and the interior is still dark, waterlogged and vile smelling. The New Orleans Arena next door is in better shape, they said.