OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – The NCAA Presidents Commission, hoping to avoid a second showdown with the Black Coaches Association, voted Wednesday to let schools in some cases choose between their own SAT freshmen requirements and the NCAA’s.

Given full authority to set their own test score standards, schools could, in theory, do away with those requirements altogether for a few athletes who don’t qualify to compete as freshmen. They still couldn’t compete, but they could get scholarship aid and practice.

However, the commission also amended its earlier plan to let athletes who don’t meet freshmen eligibility requirements earn a fourth year of eligibility through academic achievement.

“Those who don’t meet the standards are very small in number,” Judith Albino, chairwoman of the commission, said at a news conference. “We also recognize the differences among our schools and the need for institutional autonomy when it comes to working with students who are at risk academically.”

Based on data from earlier years, the NCAA estimated there could be roughly 2,000 partial qualifiers, or about 2.5 percent of the total 25,000 scholarship athletes in Division I. About 1,400 of the partial qualifiers woathletes in Division I. About 1,400 of the partial qualifiers would be black, the NCAA estimated.

The commission’s proposal will go to a vote of the nearly 300 Division I schools at their convention in January, along with a competing proposal put forth without recommendation by the NCAA Council. That one would greatly de-emphasize the use of ACT and SAT scores in determining freshmen eligibility.

A year ago, the BCA lost a bitter convention fight with the commission over basketball scholarship limits and threatened a boycott of basketball games. That dispute is now on hold, but many black coaches and educators have long opposed standardized tests, saying they’re racially discriminatory.

As announced Wednesday, the commission would require high school graduates to complete 13 core courses – math, English, sciences, etc. – instead of the present 11. It also would retain test score requirements under a sliding scale that allows higher grade point averages to compensate for lower test scores.