There's Simple and There's Oversimplified

[Nexus]

 

 

There isn’t a compliance person in the business who doesn’t want a simpler set of recruiting rules. Jokes about job security aside, a simpler set of rules would mean that monitoring would be exclusively about whether the rules are being followed rather than what rule applies in a given situation.

 

That’s why I don’t agree that Proposal 2009-32-B constitutes deregulation. That proposal allows institutions to make unlimited phone calls to recruits during contact periods in sports with a defined recruiting calendar. At first glance, it seems like deregulation. Unlimited phone calls mean they don’t have to be monitored, right? But that “deregulation” did the following:

 

• Added a new bylaw to the book: 13.1.3.1.1
• Created a new burden to closely monitor the recruiting calendar
• Requires institutions to remember there are different phone call rules for sports like cross country than there are for sports like soccer
• Took an idea that was previously used by a major revenue sport (football) and applied it on campuses that don’t have the resources that sport brings

But 2009-32-B or the upcoming proposal to limit verbal scholarship offers is genius compared to some of the suggestions offered by Gary Brown of CollegeSportsMatchups.com. The list itself is jaw dropping any way you slice it, whether its individually or as a whole, replacing current rules or whipping the slate clean. Let’s start by looking at just one.

 

Any prospective student-athlete must be academically qualified to be offered a scholarship to a school.

Right off the bat Brown stars with doozy. If he means prospects must be academic qualifiers per the NCAA Eligibility Center, most prospects wouldn’t be able to get a scholarship offer until a number of weeks after they graduate. Plus the Eligibility Center would be buried under requests to certify every prospect immediately after they graduate.

 

If this means a prospect must just meet the individual school’s admissions requirements, it still raises the questions of whether you essentially need to admit the student before sending a scholarship. Also an issue: which requirements those are: normal admissions standards or through special admissions programs for athletes? If it means the former, that would be a rewrite of eligibility rules as well as recruiting rules.

 

Here’s the rest of the list:

 

• All scholarship offers must be in writing. Schools may not over sign classes in anticipation of losses for various reasons.
• Allow schools to sign a student-athlete at any time they choose. The scholarship cannot be revoked.
• Once a coach offers a scholarship to a student-athlete they have to cease contact with said recruit.
• Scholarship offers have to be in writing.
• Once a prospective student-athlete makes an announcement of a commitment to a school, all others must cease contact with him and cannot offer him a scholarship in the future.
• Athletes may visit a campus only once related to athletic purposes. All subsequent visits must be coordinated with the admission office of the university and may not include game tickets or interaction with athletic department staff in any manner. Visits must meet the criteria of visits experienced by all students considering the school for general admission.
• Representatives of an institution’s athletic interest may only visit a recruit’s home once.
• Representatives of an institution’s athletic interest may only visit with a prospect on his campus once.
• Any recruiting efforts made by athletic boosters of a university will result in the recruited student-athlete being made ineligible for participation at the institution.
• Violation of the rules will result in significant and immediate penalties.

Just a few thoughts on these:

 

1. The requirement of written scholarship offers means a ban on verbal scholarship offers. Which is exactly the proposal that caused Brown to write the article in the first place.
2. Why require monitoring of verbal commitments when signing is allowed at any time? To say nothing of what both rules would do for APR scores and transfer rates.
3. Limiting visits and contact after scholarship offers means recruits have to make decisions in a vacuum and can’t renegotiate scholarships offers based on other offers in equivalency sports. Again, to say nothing of what it will do to the rate of transfers.
4. Does Brown not know that a “representative of athletics interest” and a “booster” is the same thing, so allowing contact but increasing penalties for recruiting by boosters is a bit confusing.
5. There is not a single rule governing when or how often coaches can contact or evaluate prospects, which means it doesn’t accomplish what

There are currently 50 pages of recruiting rules in the 2009-10 Division I Manual. That doesn’t include the recruiting calendars or the rules in other bylaws that relate to recruiting like coaching limitations. To attempt to reduce that to “a single sheet of paper” in one fell swoop is impossible.

 

LINK

 

 

[Captain K]