New rule puts Tigers’ Neal in the spotlight

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Gary Neal said Wednesday he will be in a Towson Tigers uniform for the 2006-2007 season.

In an interview last month, Towson head coach Pat Kennedy said that Neal would be back with the program and Neal confirmed that on Wednesday.

“I will definitely be back at Towson,” Neal said. There was a chance that Neal would not be back on the court for Towson, where he led the Tigers with 26.1 points per game in 2005-06.

That chance was made possible when the NCAA Board of Directors adopted Proposal 2005-54 on April 27.

According to this rule, a student-athlete that has graduated in four years and has a year of eligibility remaining can transfer to another academic institution for graduate school and would be eligible to participate for that institution immediately.

Normally, when a student-athlete transfers they must sit out a year of their respective sport. That was the case with Neal when he transferred from La Salle University in the wake of rape charges, of which he was later acquitted.

Jennifer Kearns, an Associate Director of Public and Media Relations for the NCAA, said that the rule has a 60-day override period. Comments will be reviewed at the next NCAA Board of Directors meeting.

“The first time I heard about [the rule] was when the article came out,” Neal said, referring to a CBS SportsLine.com column by Gregg Doyel on May 24. Doyel wrote that Neal could transfer for his final season because he graduated in four years and has another year of eligibility remaining from sitting out a season after his transfer from La Salle. Neal, however, has not graduated.

“It is a rumor I can live with and that I don’t have any problem reading about,” Neal said.

Peter Schlehr, Towson’s Director of Athletic Media Relations, said that Neal, a history major, is doing very well academically, but he is nine credits shy of graduation. “He is not enrolled in any summer courses right now,” Schlehr said. “It was a possibility,” Schlehr said of Neal’s chances for graduation before the fall. Neal said that he will take his time and plans to graduate next spring.

THE NEAL FILE

School: Towson University

Year: Senior

Position: Guard

Height: 6-4

Weight: 210

Did You Know? Neal’s statistics were not officially recognized by the NCAA or Colonial Athletic Association in 2006 because he was four games short of playing in the required 75 percent of Towson’s games. Had Neal’s statistics been official he would have been ahead of CAA leading scorer and NBA prospect Jose Juan Barea of Northeastern University (21.0 ppg) by five full points per game.

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