Leave rules to NCAA, schools, Osborne says

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OWH:

 

Leave rules to NCAA, schools, Osborne says

 

BY JAKE THOMPSON

 

WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Amid allegations on college campuses of sex parties to entice high school athletic stars, former Nebraska Football Coach Tom Osborne told a congressional panel Thursday that the schools and the NCAA - not the federal government - should consider tightening recruiting standards.

 

"For us to make rules it'd be very difficult," said Osborne, who coached NU for a quarter century and now represents Nebraska's 3rd District in Congress. "It'd be like having the Washington Redskins come in here and write tax policy. They just don't understand it."

 

He said that the NCAA is well-suited to provide stricter oversight of college recruiting, but he acknowledged some problems will always occur.

 

"There's going to be a certain percentage who will cheat on their taxes, a certain percentage of people who are going to cheat on recruiting," he said. "That's just the way it is."

 

But it would be a "terrible mistake" if Congress stepped in, he said.

 

Osborne spoke to a congressional hearing examining college recruiting after recent allegations at the University of Colorado and other campuses of offering sex parties, drugs and alcohol during recruiting visits.

 

Most college coaches see no competitive advantage to breaking rules, nor do they want to recruit student athletes interested in illicit or illegal activities, Osborne said.

 

"Some people feel if you furnish them with some kind of illicit sexual activity, or drugs or alcohol they're more apt to come. I don't think so," he said. "You may get them, but you don't want those guys. And furthermore, in most cases they will finish you off. So it's not something you're out to do."

 

He told the panel that that college recruiting is far better regulated today than when he began coaching with visits, money spent and activities while on campus now all governed by NCAA rules.

 

He recalled stories about one recruiter at a competing school who rented an apartment in a high school athlete's town to court him for months. Before the mid-1980s some schools or alumni courted student athletes with promises of cars, clothes and cash, Osborne said.

 

After new rules were imposed in 1985, Osborne said, "I didn't see any one player that was bought out from under us."

 

Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., a member of the committee, said the problems with athletes may be signs of larger cultural problems on many campuses.

 

Terry noted that during Osborne's tenure he had a few incidents of football players getting into trouble, but "he fought to have a good culture and recruited good kids."

 

At the hearing, S. David Berst, chairman of the NCAA's task force on college recruiting, said the NCAA is considering imposing tougher rules governing recruiting. They include possibly banning visits to universities by high school athletes or curbing the duration from 48 hours to 24 hours. Other changes could be eliminating all off-campus entertainment, entertainment not supervised by a college staff member, and requiring all meals and lodging to be comparable in what a university would spend on a staff member on an official business trip.

 

"Let me be perfectly clear," Berst said. "The use of alcohol, drugs and sex and recruiting inducements cannot and will not be tolerated."