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You Cannot Stop Signing Day

February 6, 2012 by

In late January or early February every year, there is a new round of consternation about the growth of football’s Signing Day. Once only a day of celebration for recruits and watched by only the most ardent fans and boosters, signing day has gone mainstream, thanks to television, recruiting websites, and social media.

That growth has led to a circus atmosphere and a culture of oneupmanship between prospects and coaches. Recruits are coming up with ever more creative ways to indicate they have picked a school, with small animals and children now part of the act. While coaches are hemmed in to some degree by recruiting rules, they have explored every bit of space given and somehow manage to find something new to try every year.

There have been more and more calls to end signing day and return to the days before the National Letter of Intent when prospects could sign whenever they chose. With less focus on one day at the beginning of February, prospects would commit and sign whenever they feel most comfortable. Recruiting and signing would be a year-round process with less pressure to wrap it up on a specific day.

If the goal is to reduce attention on the recruiting process and make it a more private decision involving the player and the college coach, that horse has left the barn. With no signing day, each top prospect would get their own signing day. As much signing day can be a circus, it is still a communal experience prospects share with the rest of their class, future teammates and friends who play other sports.

There will always be a day that prospects can start signing scholarship offers. The only way to make that day irrelevant is to make it so early that most college coaches will not commit to a prospect at that time. But some will, so you would need to be comfortable with freshmen in high school or eighth graders signing scholarships, even if it would be only a small fraction of recruits.

There’s also the small matter of the NLI. Even the strongest opponent of the NLI should recognize the need for a prospect to be able to shutdown the recruiting process. But even the most ardent supporter of the NLI would probably agree that underclassmen in high school should not be signing anything which locks them into their choice, even temporarily. That means there must be a point where prospects can start to really end the recruiting process and that day is likely to be late enough (junior or senior year) that prospects will be ready to commit, especially if the pressure is focused on that specific day.

Much like democracy, the February signing date is the worst way for prospects to sign with a school, except for all the others. The season is over and coaching changes have mostly been made. It sets the date for committing to a school at roughly the time most high school seniors commit to attending a college. And prospects do not have to sign on signing day, an option more and more are taking, especially during basketball’s early signing period.

By and large signing day is harmless fun. Kids who have worked hard from a very young age get a day to celebrate the culmination of that effort and get to do it with their peers, parents, coaches, and teachers. All of the negatives associated with signing day are so ingrained in the recruiting process that getting rid of signing day will only move those problems rather than combat them.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

Transfer 101

January 14, 2012 by

At their best, transfers are a way of life in college athletics. At their worst, transfers are an all too necessary evil. The fact is with 400,000 student-athletes who make a major life decision at 16–18 years old,[1] there is bound to be some amount of transfer activity. All sorts of ideas have been tried to reduce the transfer rate, with varying degrees of success, but it will never be reduced to zero.

Once a student-athlete decides to transfer, a number of rules come into play. It’s a complicated process, and a lot about the process is understood. Much of that is due to the exceptions that arise. If there were no exceptions, transfers would be governed by two simple rules. But as you’ll see in this guide, simpler is rarely better.

Permission to Contact or “Why Compliance Folk Hate the Word ‘Release’”

“So and so was released from his scholarship.” That is the common phrase you hear when it is reported that a student-athlete has decided to transfer. But there are two gigantic problems with that phrase.

The first is that whether an athlete is on scholarship affects surprising little in the transfer process. A walk-on must still get permission to contact and must still sit out in most cases. The second is that a release could mean one of four things, only one of which is formally called a release. But typically what it means is that the student-athlete was granted permission to contact.

Permission to contact starts the transfer process. Typically either a school contacts another school seeking permission to talk with one of its student-athletes or the athlete seeks permission to talk to other schools. Requests from one school to another are governed by professional courtesy while requests from student-athletes are governed by the NCAA rules.

Once a student-athlete makes a written request for permission to talk to other schools, the institution has seven business days to respond to the request or it is automatically granted. If permission to contact a school is denied, it must be denied in writing, and the student-athlete offered an appeal. That appeal is decided by individuals outside the athletic department and the student-athlete must be notified of a decision within 15 business days.

If permission to contact a school is denied, the other school may not encourage the transfer. But nothing prevents the student-athlete from enrolling in the school on their own. Once there, however, he or she may not receive an athletic scholarship until after an academic year has elapsed.[2]

There are exceptions though:

  • Once a school has announced a student-athlete’s sport will be dropped, permission is automatically granted to contact any institution.
  • If the Committee on Infractions bans a team from the postseason for the rest of a student-athlete’s eligibility (assuming he or she does not redshirt), permission is automatically granted to contact any institution.[3]

Finally, the permission to contact requirement expires after a student-athlete is gone from the institution for one academic year. The only exception is if the student-athlete is on a religious mission, then it remains intact.[4]

One Exception to Rule Them All

Conventional wisdom says that student-athletes in football and basketball must sit out a year while athletes in other sports do not. In practice, conventional wisdom is mostly correct. According to the rules though, that is not always the case.

The basic rule is that any transfer from any collegiate institution to a Division I school must spend one academic year in residence before he or she is eligible for competition. In order to not sit out a year, the student-athlete must qualify for an exception to the residency requirement.

Transfers get pigeonholed into one of three categories: two-year college transfers, four-year college transfers, or 4–2–4 transfers (student-athletes who start at a four-year school, transfer to a junior college, then transfer to a Division I institution.) All have a different set of exceptions, but four-year college transfers (often called 4–4 transfers) are the focus here.

Most of the exceptions to the transfer requirement are very specific and apply only to a small fraction of student-athletes who transfer. They include:

  • Student-athletes in exchange programs;
  • When a student’s academic program is discontinued;
  • If the student returns from military service;
  • If the student-athlete’s sport was dropped or never sponsored by the first school;
  • The student-athlete has not participated in sports for at least two years; or
  • The student-athlete was not recruited and only tried out.

The bulk of student-athletes who transfer and do not need to sit out do so because they qualify for the one-time transfer exception. To qualify for the one-time transfer exception, a student-athlete must meet all of the following requirements:

  • Play a sport other than baseball, basketball, FBS football, or men’s ice hockey;[5]
  • Have never previously transferred from a four-year institution;
  • Be academically eligible at the first institution, assuming the student-athlete had stayed; and
  • Get written notice from the first school that it does not object to the use of the one-time transfer exception.

The final requirement is the second of the four releases that can occur during a transfer. Permission to use the one-time transfer exception is often granted on a “tracer.” That is a form that compliance officers send each other when a student-athlete transfers which asks for this permission along with other information needed to determine if a student-athlete can use one of the transfer exceptions. If permission to use the one-time transfer exception is not granted, the student-athlete has a right to the same written notice and appeal process used when permission to contact is not granted.

Graduates

When a student-athlete wishes to transfer after graduating, a slightly different set of rules kicks in. But a history lesson is in order.

Prior to 2005, a graduate had to meet one of the transfer exceptions like any other student. In 2006, Division I adopted proposal 2005–54, which stated that any student-athlete who graduated with eligibility remaining could transfer and play immediately at the new school if he or she enrolled in a graduate program. This was a brand new transfer exception, one with relatively few requirements, required no permission[6] and which applied to many student-athletes.

As a result, many student-athletes took advantage of the new exception. So many in such a short amount of time that the rule was overridden and ultimately defeated at the 2007 NCAA Convention.

But the idea behind 2005–54 never fully went away. It lived on as a very standard waiver which was relatively easy to get, provided you qualified for it. To qualify, the student-athlete needed to graduate, enroll in a graduate program not offered by the first institution, and receive permission from the first institution to be granted the waiver (like the one-time transfer exception).

Finally, that waiver was codified by Proposal 2010–52 as Bylaw 14.1.9.1, as a transfer exception rather than a waiver, meaning each case did not need to be processed by the NCAA. There were two big changes. First, Bylaw 14.1.9.1 gives access to the one-time transfer exception for students who played sports that did not qualify for it. Second, the bylaw required that the student-athlete’s aid was not renewed for the following year, although this could occur after a student-athlete decided to transfer.

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Waiver

All NCAA rules are subject to waivers from the Subcommittee for Legislative Relief (SLR) and the NCAA staff in that area.[7] The transfer rules have a number of such waivers. The most well-known are the graduate transfer waiver (which still exists) and the hardship transfer waiver. The hardship transfer waiver is for student-athletes who are compelled to transfer because of financial hardship or an injury or illness to the student-athlete or a member of their family.

Effect of the NLI

Only two parts of the National Letter of Intent really apply to transfers once a student-athlete has enrolled at the institution: how the provisions of the NLI are satisfied and the basic penalty of the NLI. The provisions of the letter are satisfied once the student-athlete attends the school for one academic year. After that, the NLI is complete and has no bearing on a transfers.

If a student-athlete wishes to transfer during the first academic year at the school, they would be subject to the basic penalty. If a student-athlete leaves without fulfilling the NLI, he or she must sit one year before competing at the new school and loses a season of competition in all sports.

The basic penalty can be avoided by obtaining a release. Obtaining a release from the NLI is much like obtaining permission to contact or use of the one-time transfer exception, but with two major differences. First, the NLI release is not school-specific, there is only a “complete release.” An institution cannot grant a release from the NLI, but exclude conference schools, for instance.

Second, the NLI has not one but two appeals. Both appeals are to groups outside the institution. If an institution denies the complete release, the student-athlete has 30 days to appeal to the NLI Policy and Review Committee.

  1. Or earlier.  ↩

  2. An academic year is any two consecutive semesters or three consecutive quarters. It does not need to run fall-spring.  ↩

  3. In this case, the other schools that are contacting or being contacted by the student-athletes must notify the first school of the contact.  ↩

  4. This is part of two dueling proposals from the WAC and Mountain West a few years ago. The Mountain West wanted to stop schools from recruiting its athletes while they were on religious missions. The WAC countered by proposing to remove a transfer exception upon completion of a mission. Both were adopted.  ↩

  5. There are a few caveats though. If a student-athlete was not recruited, they can still use the exception even in the sports listed. The sport that counts is the one the athlete will play at the second institution. And to use the exception to transfer from FBS to FCS, the student-athlete must have at least two years of eligibility remaining.  ↩

  6. Permission to contact still would have been needed for an athlete to get financial aid.  ↩

  7. SLR is a subcommittee of the Legislative Council.  ↩

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

How A Ban Can Be Deregulation

December 9, 2011 by

One of the under-the-radar issues still bubbling along in the NCAA is Proposal 2009–100-A. The proposal (2009–100 for simplicity’s sake, the “B” version is long gone) bans Division I institutions from hosting most nonscholastic boys basketball competitions and camps. The proposal, which was adopted last year, is currently receiving comment from each individual member school, after which the schools will vote. A five-eighths majority is required to overturn the new rule.

The rule got more public over the last couple of weeks when more people learned how far the definition of “nonscholastic” actually stretched. A number of events, like this one, had to be moved from Division I arenas. While they were between high school teams, they were sponsored by nonscholastic organizations, like visitors bureaus and event promoters. The reason the ban extends so far is to both prevent third parties (whoever they may be) from turning into event promoters to cash in from a college recruiting their prospects, and so Division I schools are not contributing directly to having even more basketball games during the high school season.

Banning these events, many of which have been around for a long time and are completely on the up-and-up, is seen by many as an example of the type of regulation that the NCAA needs to get rid of. “Deregulation” is a common cry. Why waste time on who holds an event in the school’s arena, the argument goes, when there are more pressing issues.

The reason is that Proposal 2009–100 is trying to save compliance offices time rather than increasing their burden. When the Division I Board of Directors issued its interpretation back in October 2009, the Board touched specifically on boys basketball camps:

It is not permissible for a men’s basketball staff member or a representative of the institution’s athletics interests to be involved in any way in the operation or planning of a men’s basketball nonscholastic event on its campus.

If Proposal 2009–100 survives, monitoring boys basketball events on campus is relatively easy. Who are the teams and who is sponsoring the event? If 2009–100 is ultimately defeated, the monitoring burden goes up significantly since an institution might be called on to prove that their men’s basketball staff was not involved in setting up an AAU tournament on campus. That might mean practices like monitoring phone records and email of coaches to look for communication with event operators, or ensuring that only certain people in the athletic department or university are involved with setting up the event. Pricing and amenities offered to these events may also have to be monitored.

A lot of the deregulation talk recently has focused on removing things from the Division I Manual that are not worth worrying about. But there’s a flip side to “deregulation” that should be seriously considered. Some activities require so much monitoring to be done fairly and ethically that they are not worth the benefit. In that case, it is in the interest of deregulation to ban Division I institutions from wasting their time with the activity so they can focus on more important things.

Do AAU basketball events on campus fall into that category? Enough of Division I thought so at one point to pass the rule, but it remains to be seen if they still feel that way. NIRSA, the National Intramural-Recreation Sport Association certainly feels the extra trouble is worth it, given the significant revenue that recreational sport departments see from AAU events. “Saving people from themselves” is always a tricky proposition. But that does not mean there is only one way to focus athletic departments on what is important.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: , , ,

No Good Solution to Unofficial Visit Issues

October 7, 2011 by

There’s really no need to rehash Pete Thamel’s excellent article on some of the problems caused by the unofficial visit. In the bylaws, an unofficial visit is:

An unofficial visit to a member institution by a prospective student-athlete is a visit made at the prospective student-athlete’s own expense. The provision of any expenses or entertainment valued at more than $100 by the institution or representatives of its athletics interests shall require the visit to become an official visit, except as permitted in Bylaws 13.5 and 13.7.

Official visits, those financed by the institution, do not start until a prospect starts their senior year of high school. Even then, a prospect gets five official visits and only one to each school. And in football, basketball, and baseball, an institution is limited in how many official visits it can provide each year.

Thamel’s article does not present many good solutions for solving the unofficial visit issue. One idea thrown out that is getting discussion this year is allowing official visits to begin at some time during the junior year. That might help some, cutting down on big “junior day” weekends that look a lot like official visit events and draw prospects from around the country, raising questions about how they paid for it. But with only five visits and one chance to see a school, the official visit is not the answer without significantly raising recruiting costs.

The reason the unofficial visit is such a vexing problem is that many coaches and recruits are fond of early commitments. There are a lot of coaches who are good at recruiting, but far fewer who truly enjoy it. Most would prefer to wrap up a couple classes as soon as possible so they can focus on the players who have already enrolled. Parents want the best situation or most money (in equivalency sports) for their child, so starting early gives them a leg up. Not to mention some recruits do not enjoy the process, and get it over with as soon as possible.

This gives an advantage to a recruit who has a family with means and sophistication to be proactive in the recruiting process. Until a recruit finishes their sophomore year, it is hard (within the rules) for a coach to reach out to them. Coaches can express their interest to high school or club coaches and show up regularly at the prospect’s games. But it is largely up to the prospect to call the coach and potentially visit the campus on their own dime in order to secure a scholarship offer and make a commitment.

To erase this advantage, prospects are turning to parties willing to finance an unofficial visit. That could be the institution paying under the table, the prospect’s coach, a handler, or a family friend. Sometimes it seems the prospect is almost an unwilling or unknowing participant in the visit, not realizing that their road trip with their club team is primarily a tour of schools that may or may not have paid for the opportunity.

The unofficial visit is such a hard problem to solve because both the solutions are unappealing. Deregulate the official visit sufficiently and you drag prospects out of school with alarming regularity and raise the cost of recruiting a great deal. Deregulate who can pay for visits and prospects who cannot afford their own visits are at the mercy of those willing to foot the bill. It might just be one of those rules that we have to live with and that has to give a few schools some lumps before monitoring catches up with the tricks.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: ,

2011-12 POPL Review: Recruiting

August 22, 2011 by

The review of the 2011-12 proposed legislation continues with recruiting proposals. The proposed recruiting legislation, by and large, is about deregulation. There are some notable exceptions, but if everything was adopted, coaches would be able to do more recruiting than they currently can. For those watching the size of the rule book, it would be a wash. Some of the deregulation in what we can do involves adding exceptions to the Manual.

Recruiting is also the largest section, with over 30 proposals, as is normally the case. So let’s jump back in.

2011-28: Recruiting – Parents of Enrolled Student-Athletes

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To specify that on-campus contacts between a prospective student-athlete or the prospective student-athlete’s parents (or legal guardians) and the parents (or legal guardians) of an enrolled student-athlete that occur on the day of a regularly scheduled on-campus athletics event shall be permissible.

Analysis: Parents are technically boosters and are prohibited from contact with recruits. That means a host of monitoring challenges: separate seating sections, having to follow prospects around, and splitting meals up (like tailgates). Parents of athletes are probably the most honest recruiters you’ll find though, especially when discussing the school with other parents. It is too much work to keep them apart and too much good information will flow from parents of student-athletes to recruits.

2011-29: Recruiting – Student-Athlete Contact Off-Campus Contact During an Unofficial Visit

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To specify that off-campus, in-person contacts between enrolled student-athletes and a prospective student-athlete are permissible if such contacts do not occur at the direction of a coaching staff member and the prospective student-athlete has notified the institution that he or she is making an unofficial visit.

Analysis: Along a similar vein, student-athletes cannot have contact with prospects off-campus except on official visits. This rule often comes into play when a prospect visits a campus and wants to go out for a meal with student-athletes. Like keeping parents away, confining student-athletes to campus once the prospect is already visiting is too much work and harms the decision-making of the prospect.

2011-30: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – No Limits After First Permissible Date

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To deregulate the restrictions on telephone calls and electronically transmitted correspondence, as specified.

2011-31: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – No Limits After First Permissible Date

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: To eliminate the limitations on the number and frequency of telephone calls to prospective student-athletes, as specified.

Analysis: The biggest difference between the Big East Conference and the Recruiting Cabinet’s two proposals is that the Big East seeks to deregulating text messaging and other electronic communication along with phone calls. There appears to be enough momentum behind this idea that it might actually get done. There is just one issue with deregulating text messaging: if a coach can text message a prospect and ask him to call him as a junior, why not just let coaches call juniors?

2011-32: Recruiting – Telephone Calls – Compliance Administrators

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: To permit compliance administrators to make telephone calls to or receive telephone calls from a prospective student-athlete (or the prospective student-athlete’s parents or legal guardians) with no limit on the timing or number of such calls, provided the calls relate only to compliance issues.

Analysis: Having to wait for a prospect to call or for a coach to get a prospect to call the compliance office can be a pain. It hampers investigations and prevents the compliance office from properly advising prospects on initial eligibility. If ideas like yearly progress toward initial eligibility take root, this will not just be a good idea, it will be necessary.

2011-33: Recruiting – Limits on Contacts and Evaluations

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: In women’s basketball, women’s sand volleyball and women’s volleyball, to eliminate the limitation on the number of evaluations per prospective student-athlete.

Analysis: During the academic year, there is a limit on the number of times a coach can contact or evaluate a prospect off-campus. These three women’s sports have small teams and limited evaluation days, thus negating the need to limit coaches from evaluating an individual prospect. Coaches may feel the pressure to babysit though, spending recruiting days being visible to committed prospects rather than scouting for new talent.

2011-34: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball Evaluations

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that evaluations of live athletics activities during the academic year evaluation periods (other than permissible nonscholastic events) shall be limited to regularly scheduled high school, preparatory school and two-year college contests/tournaments and practices; and regular scholastic activities involving prospective student-athletes enrolled only at the institution at which the regular scholastic activities occur.

Analysis: The July evaluation periods get a bad rap, especially in men’s basketball. It’s at these unorganized and unpublicized events where rule breaking is most likely to take place. There’s nothing to stop rule breaking at regularly scheduled practices, but at least there is some structure there rather than college coaches hanging out at pick-up games.

2011-35: Recruiting – Recruiting Materials

Sponsor: Big South Conference

Intent: In sports other than men’s basketball and men’s ice hockey, to specify that an institution shall not provide recruiting materials, including general correspondence related to athletics, to an individual (or his or her parents or legal guardians) until June 15 at the conclusion of his or her sophomore year in high school.

Analysis: This proposal would unify the starting date to send recruiting materials (which include email and text messages (assuming they are deregulated) as well as letters) to June 15 after the sophomore year. It makes no sense to have multiple rules for this. The only question is whether to move two sports back to September 1 or move every other sport up to June 15 (or some other date).

2011-36: Recruiting – Electronic Correspondence

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

Intent: To specify that an institution shall not send electronic correspondence (e.g., email, chat, instant messages, text messages) to an individual (or his or her parents or legal guardians) until September 1 at the beginning of his or her junior year in high school.

2011-37: Recruiting – Electronic Correspondence

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: To specify that electronic correspondence (e.g., email, instant messages, facsimiles, text messages) may be sent to a prospective student-athlete (or the prospective student-athlete’s parents or legal guardians), provided the correspondence is sent directly to the prospective student-athlete (or his or her parents or legal guardians) and is private between only the sender and recipient (e.g., no use of chat rooms, message boards, posts to “walls”).

Analysis: Both proposals seek to deregulating electronic correspondence, namely text messages. The major difference is that the cabinet defines what types of transmissions are permitted, while the WCC proposal is a little more open-ended. Which one you support likely rests on how fast you think technology moves, and whether social media sites and cellphone makes will blur the lines between private and public or direct and indirect.

2011-38: Recruiting – Automated Notifications

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: To specify that electronic correspondence (e.g., email, instant messages, facsimiles, text messages) may be sent to a prospective student-athlete (or the prospective student-athlete’s parents or legal guardians), provided the correspondence is sent directly to the prospective student-athlete (or his or her parents or legal guardians) and is private between only the sender and recipient (e.g., no use of chat rooms, message boards, posts to “walls”).

Analysis: In the absence of the proposals that go further in deregulation, this would be a very common sense exception to the rule because a coach has no control sometimes over how a prospect is notified of events on a social media platform. But with the opportunity to attack the entire rule, there’s no need for an exception.

2011-39: Recruiting Camp Brochures at Event Venue

Sponsor: Southern Conference

Intent: To specify that an institution may make institutional camp or clinic brochures available at the venue of an athletics event involving prospective student-athletes.

2011-48: Recruiting – Recruiting at Sports Camps

Sponsor: Big South Conference

Intent: In sports other than men’s basketball, to specify that it is permissible for an institution’s coaches to engage in recruiting conversations with prospective student-athletes during the institution’s camps or clinics.

Analysis: If camps were not already a major part of recruiting, they will be soon. Camps are the only way for coaches to run a tryout for most sports. And with a proposal on the table now for coaches to recruit at their camps and with coaches able to do some silent promotion of their camps at prospects’ games, it could become the center of recruiting. Gather as many elite prospects to your camps and then pitch them after they sleep in the dorms and see your coaching. The restrictions on men’s basketball elite camps could spread sooner rather than later.

2011-40: Recruiting – Entertainment Allowance

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To increase, from $30 to $40, the allowance that an institution may provide a student host for each day of a prospective student-athlete’s official visit to cover all actual costs of entertaining the student host(s) and the prospective student-athlete; further, to increase, from $15 to $20, the additional allowance an institution may provide the student host per day for each additional prospective student-athlete the host entertains.

Analysis: $30 for entertainment on an official visit is one of the most well-known recruiting rules. Maybe because it has been set at $30 since 1996. The Big East did the math and found that $43 dollars now buys what $30 bought back then, and rounded it down to $40. A minimal increase given that an official visit usually means a school has already paid to bring a prospect to campus, house them, and feed them for a couple days.

2011-41: Recruiting – First Opportunity for Unofficial Visit

Sponsor: Big South Conference

Intent: To specify that a prospective student-athlete may not make an athletically-related unofficial visit (e.g., no contact with coaching staff, no athletics-specific tour) before June 15th at the conclusion of the prospective student-athlete’s freshman year of high school.

Analysis: The last time a ban or start date for unofficial visits was contemplated, it was for women’s soccer only and the start date was August 1 prior to a prospect’s senior year. Unofficial visits are hard to regulate though, requiring a coach to turn away prospects who show up on campus. This also codifies a progression that does not make sense, allowing a visit and in-person contact before allowing the sending of a letter.

2011-42: Recruiting – Entertainment of Nonathletics Personnel

Sponsor: Big East Conference

Intent: To permit an institutional department outside the athletics department (e.g., president’s office, admissions) to host nonathletics high school, preparatory school or two-year college personnel (e.g., guidance counselors, principals) at a home intercollegiate athletics event and may provide such individuals food, refreshments, room expenses and a nominal gift, provided the visit is not related to athletics recruiting and there is no involvement by the institution’s athletics department in the arrangements for the visit, other than providing (in accordance with established policy) free admissions to an athletics event.

Analysis: It makes sense to allow an institution to host individuals who have a good reason to be there even if they are connected to prospects in some roundabout way. But there’s a lot of rules added to achieve that fact. It is an example of a rule that has plagued the Manual: a good idea that adds rules and complexity to the manual.

2011-43: Recruiting – Limitation on Number of Football Signings

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that there shall be an annual signing limit of 25 on the number of prospective student-athletes who may sign a National Letter of Intent or institutional offer of financial aid from December 1 through May 31; further to specify that a prospective student-athlete who signs a National Letter of Intent or an institutional offer of financial aid and becomes an initial counter for the same academic year in which the signing occurred (e.g., midyear enrollee) shall not count toward the annual limit on signings.

Analysis: This is one part of the SEC’s over signing proposals. It drops the limit to 25 and expands it to include midyear enrollees that will take up initial counter spots the following year. I suspect this proposal will not simply get an up-and-down vote though, given the national debate and attention. Expect many modifications and alternatives to be offered.

2011-44: Recruiting – Submission of Transcript to Eligibility Center Before Signing

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Academic Cabinet

Intent: To specify that an institution shall not permit a high school prospective student-athlete (other than a prospective student-athlete who attends a secondary school in a foreign country or a home-schooled prospective student-athlete) to sign a National Letter of Intent or an institution’s written offer of financial aid until the NCAA Eligibility Center has received an official high school transcript for each high school the prospective student-athlete has attended through his or her sixth semester (or equivalent) of enrollment.

Analysis: The idea that an institution must evaluate a prospect’s academic status prior to signing them is not a new one, but it has taken time to take hold in Division I. This goes one step further, requiring all transcripts to be at the Eligibility Center. If this passes, expect a whole new flurry of activity around signing days.

2011-45: Recruiting – Nonscholastic Women’s Basketball Competition

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that an institution [including any institutional department (e.g., athletics, recreational/intramural)] shall not host, sponsor or conduct a nonscholastic basketball practice or competition in which women’s basketball prospective student-athletes participate on its campus or at an off-campus facility regularly used by the institution for practice and/or competition by any of the institution’s sport programs, and to establish limited exceptions, as specified; further, to specify that the use of an institution’s facilities for noninstitutional camps is limited to the months of June, July and August; finally, to prohibit evaluations at noninstitutional events, camps or clinics that occur on a Division I campus during evaluation periods.

2011-46: Recruiting – Nonscholastic Football Camps or Competition

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In football, to specify that an institution [including any institutional department (e.g., athletics, recreational/intramural)] shall not host, sponsor or conduct a nonscholastic football practice or competition (e.g., seven-on-seven events) in which football prospective student-athletes participate on its campus or at an off-campus facility regularly used by the institution for practice and/or competition by any of the institution’s sport programs; further, to limit the use of institutional facilities for noninstitutional camps or clinics that include prospect-aged participants to June and July in bowl subdivision football and to June, July and August in championship subdivision football.

Analysis: These rules actually make more sense for women’s basketball and football. Without the same type of money from shoe companies as found in men’s basketball, getting a sweetheart deal from a school is a bigger deal. But it raises the same issue as the men’s basketball ban, up for an override vote this January: is the best way to control these events to move them further away from colleges?

2011-47: Recruiting – Local Sports Clubs – Football

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In football, to prohibit a coach or a noncoaching staff member with football-specific responsibilities from being involved in any capacity in a football club that includes prospective student-athletes.

Analysis: When working with local sports clubs was banned for basketball, football was overlooked because football did not have clubs. Now with 7-on-7 growing, it makes sense to treat football and basketball the same. Maybe though a ban is not the best way to treat either.

2011-49: Recruiting – Volunteer Work at Nonprofit Camp

Sponsor: Mid-American Conference

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to specify that an institution’s head coach may participate as a volunteer (e.g. counselor, guest lecturer, consultant) on one day in June or July outside the designated two periods of 15 consecutive days at a charitable or nonprofit camp or clinic, as specified.

Analysis: Volunteering for a nonprofit camp sounds like a noble enterprise. The issue is whether what nonprofit means in football camps will be the same as what nonprofit means in men’s basketball recruiting: a way to gather money to support a nonscholastic team. This would expressly permit something that has been prohibited in men’s basketball.

2011-50: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – Criteria for Subscription

Sponsor: Big East Conference, Conference USA, and Mountain West

Intent: In sports other than basketball and football, to specify that an institution may subscribe to a recruiting or scouting service involving prospective student-athletes, provided the service is made available to all institutions desiring to subscribe and at the same fee rate for all subscribers; further, to specify that an institution is permitted to subscribe to a service that provides scholastic and/or nonscholastic video. In basketball and football, to eliminate the restriction on subscribing to a service that includes access to nonscholastic video.

2011-51: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – Criteria for Subscription

Sponsor: Pac-12 Conference

Intent: In sports other than basketball and football, to specify that an institution may subscribe to a recruiting or scouting service involving prospective student-athletes, provided the service is made available to all institutions desiring to subscribe and at the same fee rate for all subscribers; further, to specify that an institution is permitted to subscribe to a service that provides scholastic and/or nonscholastic video.

Analysis: The major difference between these two proposals is that the first, 2011-50, would allow basketball and football programs to subscribe to recruiting services that provide video of nonscholastic video along with all other sports. 2011-51 would keep that prohibition in place for football and men’s basketball. The toothpaste is out of the tube with AAU basketball and 7-on-7 football, so it makes sense to allow coaches to use those events to make better evaluations in a cost-effective manner.

2011-52: Recruiting – Recruiting Services – NCAA Approval

Sponsor: Southeastern Conference

Intent: In basketball and football, to specify that an institution shall not subscribe to a recruiting or scouting service unless the service has been approved by the NCAA pursuant to an annual approval process.

Analysis: This sounds great, but there are two problems. First, the NCAA approval process was originally designed for men’s basketball, has not started yet, and could potentially be expanded to football right off the bat. Second, it does not solve the critical problem with how scouting services are regulated. If someone creates a permissible scouting service, they can still use it a front business to sell access to prospects.

2011-53: Recruiting – Donation of Athletics Equipment

Sponsor: West Coast Conference

Intent: To eliminate the restriction that precludes an institution from donating athletics equipment to a bona fide youth organization outside a 30-mile radius of the institution’s campus.

Analysis: More than eliminating the 30-mile radius, this is an area ripe for more deregulation. It is worth it to ask if a donation of used pads and footballs is enough to get a coach to swing his prospects toward a particular college.

2011-54: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball – July Evaluation and Dead Periods

Sponsor: Atlantic Coast Conference

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that during the time period of July 6-31, the recruiting calendar shall consist of, consecutively, a seven-day evaluation period, a 10-day dead period, a seven-day evaluation period and a two-day dead period.

Analysis: The ACC jumped the gun and offered for women’s basketball one of the ideas for a reworked July evaluation period that is being discussed for men’s basketball. This drops the number of days from 20 to 14, with a longer dead period in the middle. It does highlight the difference in the two approaches for the men. One (this one) is just about less recruiting days in July. The other (long weekends only) is more about changing the overall pattern of what coaches are doing during July.

2011-55: Recruiting – Football – January Dead Period

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In bowl subdivision football, to revise the recruiting calendar to specify that January 4 through the Sunday during the week of the annual convention of the American Football Coaches Association shall be a dead period.

Analysis:

2011-56: Recruiting – Fencing Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In fencing, to establish recruiting-person days and a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-57: Recruiting – Field Hockey Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In field hockey, to establish recruiting-person days and a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-58: Recruiting – Women’s Gymnastics Recruiting Calendars

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In women’s gymnastics, to establish a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-59: Recruiting – Men’s Ice Hockey Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In men’s ice hockey, to establish a recruiting calendar, as specified.

2011-60: Recruiting – Wrestling Recruiting Calendar

Sponsor: NCAA Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Cabinet

Intent: In wrestling, to establish a recruiting calendar, as specified.

Analysis: A host of sports are asking for recruiting calendars, and two (fencing and field hockey) are asking for recruiting person-day limitations as well. It is reasonable to question if these sports need limits, but the fact that the proposals come from the coaches associations is in their favor. It is also reasonable to ask if creating a recruiting calendar is being done at least partly to get unlimited phone calls during contact periods, currently only for sports with defined recruiting periods.

2011-61: Recruiting – Women’s Basketball Event Certification

Sponsor: Atlantic Coast Conference

Intent: In women’s basketball, to specify that a certified event shall not employ (either on a salaried or a volunteer basis) a current women’s basketball student-athlete.

Analysis: Just like moving nonscholastic events off-campus, it is worth asking if having student-athletes work these events is a positive influence. I would like to see the statistics on how powerful the effect of being around student-athletes is when it comes to camps. If camps are that strong in recruiting, this might make sense.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: ,

Now That’s a Model

August 8, 2011 by

The NCAA’s governance structure often gets the deserved criticism of taking too long. Multiple committees, subcommittees, working groups, and blue ribbon panels have come and gone without producing much. It’s the byproduct of any legislative process that includes as many different people and institution’s as the NCAA does. It’s also the result of legislating part-time.

So for the Leadership Council’s top-to-bottom review of the men’s basketball recruiting model to wrap up within a year is a small victory for Division I’s governance structure. The results of that review are even more encouraging.

A recruiting model should think about two things: how coaches evaluate and select new student-athletes, and how they convince them to attend a particular school. The Leadership Council split into two subcommittees somewhat along those lines and came up with recommendations for both.

To evaluate prospects, the Leadership Council has recommended the return of evaluations at AAU events in April. Coaches would have two weekends, which would move if they interfere with the SAT or ACT. The July evaluation period would be shortened, either to three four-day weekends or two seven-day periods. But the biggest change is allowing tryouts, or “on-campus evaluations.”

One option is Division II’s tryout rules, which allow each school to tryout each prospect. A better option is the NABC’s proposal from 2004, which give each prospect six on-campus evaluations and each institution 18. Tryouts would be centered around the official visit, with a prospect needing to be on an official visit for a tryout until after a prospect’s senior season.

This ties into changes in how contact recruits. Official visits would be allowed starting April of a prospect’s junior year. Contact would be allowed during September and April of a prospect’s junior year as well. Phone calls and text messages would be unlimited starting August of a prospect’s junior year.

When the entire model is put together, it looks something like this:

  • Coaches would use the April and July evaluation periods of a prospect’s sophomore year to pick the members of that class they will target.
  • Starting that August, coaches would establish communication with prospects to gauge interest. Interested prospects would meet coaches in person in September.
  • Over the junior year, coaches confirm their evaluations, and secure commitments with in-home visits, official visits, and a final evaluation on campus that spring.

The model, with the NABC’s limited tryout rule, would greatly favor coaching staffs who can make good evaluations during the spring and summer before a prospect’s junior year. It also gives prospects additional bargaining power if they hold onto official visits and tryouts into their senior year.

There’s still work to be done. The July evaluation period and tryout model are still not set. And the entire exercise could be derailed by tacking on a summer practice rule to a recruiting proposal, especially as the debate over required summer school continues.

The biggest danger to any model, be it recruiting or summer school or financial aid, is to keep it in one piece when it goes in front of the membership. It’s easy to see coaches argue for April AAU evaluations, unlimited tryouts, no change to July, and no change to the contact rules, while administrators fight for reducing the July evaluation periods, deregulating contact, and passing on April AAU events and tryouts.

There’s a glimmer of hope though. The Leadership Council has gone for consensus in putting together the model. And all 31 Division I conferences are represented in that group. When the final proposal goes to the Board of Directors in October, the whole of Division I will have blessed its contents. Then it is up to the individuals on the Leadership Council to see that their vision stays intact.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

Mike Slive Sets Ambitious Reform Agenda

July 21, 2011 by

Last year when it seemed like the Pac-10 would expand all the way to the Great Plains and break apart the Big XII, college athletics was at a crossroads. Ultimately college athletics decided not to take the road that would have lead to massive changes in the structure of conferences. Instead, the great conference shake-up never occurred.

Now in 2011, a similar set of forces seem to be gathering. With a presidential retreat upcoming, SEC commissioner Mike Slive has added to the debate with an agenda for reform he hopes will become the blueprint for change in the NCAA over the next year or so. The sweeping agenda focuses on financial aid to athletes, initial eligibility, recruiting, and the enforcement process. And were it all to be implemented, it is no incremental change.

Full Cost of Attendance Scholarships

This debate has been bubbling for months now, and Mr. Slive did not introduce a specific plan. He did add one element to the debate, suggesting that money be added to the Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, which has previously been used to cover some of these costs. The SAOF could be the mechanism used by the NCAA to maintain some degree of competitive equity and assist as many institutions as possible in meeting the increased costs.

Multi-Year Scholarships

If scholarships were required to be awarded until a student-athlete graduates or exhaust his or her eligibility, it would have a significant impact on recruiting. With standards in place for canceling a student-athlete’s aid, issues like oversigning and running athletes off would be greatly reduced.

But if institutions are simply given the option to award athletics aid for multiple years at a time, recruiting would be revolutionized. Every sport, including football and basketball, would become more like an equivalency sport. Think of a scholarship as four or five total years, with the ability to offer quarters or fifths of that total scholarship. Football coaches will be sitting down with baseball coaches to get a handle on the new environment.

Degree Completion Awards

The ability to award any amount of aid for any amount of time to student-athletes working to finish their degree seems like a big advantage to richer programs. But the competitive impact is likely to be minimal. How many 18 year-olds are thinking about coming back for a sixth or seventh year of school? Many in football and men’s basketball don’t expect to be in school for four years in the first place. An easy piece of deregulation and a big win for student-athlete welfare.

Better Assistance for Future Professional Athletes

Currently the NCAA has a few ways to allow student-athletes with professional ambitions to get advice, but they are tightly regulated, and combine with league regulations on contact with student-athletes to limit the amount of information flowing to student-athletes. Alongside working with the leagues, the NCAA could deregulate Professional Sports Counseling Panels, which currently have limits on how many athletics staff members may be involved. Or go one step further, and require the panel to operate regularly as an element of institutional control.

Raise Minimum GPA for Initial Eligibility to 2.5

This was touted as the most noteworthy of Mr. Slive’s reforms, but it is a tweak compared to the next proposal. Raising the required GPA to 2.5 simply reinforces the NCAA’s position that the core course GPA is the best predictor of college success. But legislating how that GPA is obtained could be revolutionary.

Extend Annual Satisfactory Progress to High Schools

This is, by far, the biggest bombshell in Mr. Slive’s address. The problem, outlined by Mr. Slive, is that too many prospective student-athletes, especially in revenue sports, don’t get serious about academics until their junior or senior year. Requiring prospects to earn some number of core courses every year would hopefully cut back on these “mad dashes” that often include academically unsound or outright fraudulent means.

But the infrastructure to guide a prospect through this new environment simply doesn’t exist. High school guidance counselors struggle with the requirements already. And current recruiting rules prohibit any sort of direct contact until a recruit is finished with their sophomore year. To make annual progress work, the NCAA needs to allow and in fact encourage early recruiting.

Return of Partial Qualifiers

Partial qualifiers never went totally away, with partial waivers available for student-athletes who do not qualify. Mr. Slive’s reform package would bring them back as a part of the bylaws.

The key will be getting buy-in from conferences. Initial eligibility became an admissions standard when many conference adopted non-qualifier rules that prevented non-qualifiers from enrolling, forcing them to junior colleges. If the majority of conferences adopt partial qualifier rules preventing them from enrolling, we’re back to the same position we have now, but with tougher requirements.

Deregulate Communication With Recruits

Luckily for Mr. Slive, this is already happening. Although there was the disappointing defeat of Proposal 2010-30, the Athletics Personnel and Recruiting Cabinet will introduce the first state of Mr. Slive’s reform. Two proposals will go before the membership this year. One would end the ban on text messages and the other would eliminate the limit on how often a coach can call a recruit.

But going back to the annual progress requirement, at some point the membership will need to address the issue that 2010-30 could not overcome: when should we start the recruiting process? If initial eligibility starts with freshmen, the answer has to be to start recruiting with freshmen.

Merging Evaluation and Contact Periods

While this seems like basic common sense, it has enormous competitive impact, especially in football. If the spring evaluation period becomes a spring contact period, it effectively means that football coaches will be recruiting two classes at a time.

It also doesn’t eliminate the “bump” violation. Mr. Slive stated the prohibition on contact with a prospect at the site of competition would still exist. Where do most bump violations occur? At the site of competition.

Limiting Third Party Influence

My thoughts on the battle between scholastic and nonscholastic sports are well documented. To recap: nonscholastic sports are going to win. The NCAA membership can either accept that fact and encourage nonscholastic sports to develop with the proper structure and controls, or it can hope that high schools can make up ground already lost.

The NCAA should look beyond AAU and 7-on-7 to the day when elite high school football and men’s basketball student-athletes are no longer even considering their high school team. It’s happened in other sports, and it will spread to the revenue sports whether we like it or not.

More Classes of Violations

Mr. Slive is correct that the current distinction between major and secondary infractions causes the enforcement staff to pigeonhole violations into one or the other. But rather than creating more categories, the categories should be eliminated. At some point, different in each case, the enforcement staff should engage the Committee on Infractions for guidance and a potential hearing.

Some secondary violations should be public. Some major violations should not carry the same stigma as others. As the COI reiterates so often, every violation is different. Those differences should be recognized by eliminating categories and the need to place violations in those categories.

These reforms will be discussed at the presidential retreat. Hopefully we’ll see legislation moving some agenda, either this one or another, next year. Mr. Slive has presented a comprehensive agenda where financial aid, recruiting, and academics are all tied together. To reform a rule book as large and interconnected as the Division I Manual, this is the type of comprehensive thinking that is needed.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , , , ,

Defeat of Phone Call Proposal Makes NCAA Clean Up Harder

July 18, 2011 by

Proposal 2010-30 was supposed to the start of major deregulation of the recruiting rules. It wasn’t supposed to be about what the actual phone call rules were. Rather, it was about the fact that there are currently seven different regulations for when and how often a coach can call a prospect and their parents. The new rule would have cut that to three. Still not ideal, but a massive improvement over the current system.

After Proposal 2010-30 was passed with overwhelming support, coaches and administrators balked. Many of the comments on the 106 override requests opposed a move toward earlier recruiting and thought the increased workload would give an advantage to schools with larger coaching (and noncoaching) staffs.

Fewer rules slims down the Manual and cuts down on the cost of monitoring since you spend less time training staff on numerous rules. It also sets a baseline rule that could then be tweaked rather than creating a new rule on a sport-by-sport basis. A lot of inertia on basic recruiting rules would have been broken.

Instead we’ll keep the current set of rules. And more importantly, a bigger proposal coming this year that removes limits on the frequency of calls now looks much less likely to pass. That proposal will cut down dramatically on monitoring costs since schools would only need to check that coaches are not calling prospects too early. Proactive monitoring systems would also become much more affordable and accessible for smaller schools.

It’s an issue of priorities. The membership has reiterated that early recruiting and competitive equity are still major priorities. But if extra benefits, agent activity, and pay-for-play are also priorities, that means something has to give, in this case having a smaller, simpler rule book which requires less administrative overhead to maintain and enforce. It also means more resources have to be spent on compliance rather than something else, which is good or bad depending on where you sit.

There’s talk now that just about every rule is becoming untenable. Amateurism, initial eligibility, recruiting regulations, financial aid limits, and staff limitations have come under fire. It’s likely only a matter of time before the concept of eligibility itself is challenged. If we’re going to declare rules failed though, we should start with the little ones that take a lot of time and effort first, rather than jumping straight to core values.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

Basketball Recruiting Model Discussion Gaining Steam

April 28, 2011 by

Everyone remembers way back in October when the Conference Commissioners Association voted to recommend that July basketball recruiting, the last bastion of in-person recruiting at AAU events by Division I men’s basketball coaches, be eliminated? And how the National Association of Basketball Coaches disagreed? And how the NCAA Division I Board of Directors declined to enact or sponsor legislation at that time, but instead ordered the Leadership Council to begin a study of the men’s basketball recruiting model?

Well that study is beginning to bear fruit. Head to the Pac-10 Compliance Corner website and you’ll find the agenda of the NCAA Board of Directors meeting on April 28, 2011. Within that agenda is the report of the Division I Leadership Council. And within that report are two possible alternatives to the NCAA’s current recruiting model. One is primarily championed and developed by the Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-10, ACC, and Big East. The other is an alternate proposal offered by the SEC.

The two plans are more similar than they are different. For starters, both would dramatically deregulate recruiting correspondence. Any form of communication (fax, text, email, phone calls, IM, etc.) would be permissible starting August 1 prior to a prospect’s junior year in high school. And there would be no limits on the frequency of such contact. This would combat the unlimited access to prospects that “third parties” presently enjoy.

Both models would also permit actual tryouts during official visits. Tryouts would be closed to the public, last up to two hours, and include a medical exam before any physical activity. Competition against the current team would be permitted as well. These regulations close track current Division II legislation, which permits tryouts.

Both groups propose a new critical date in the recruiting process: April 15 of a prospect’s junior year in high school. Starting on that date, off-campus contact and official visits would be permitted, currently prohibited prior to July 1 after a prospect’s junior year and the start of a prospect’s senior year respectively. April 15 might strike you as familar: it’s the opening of the football spring evaluation period.

The two plans diverge when it comes to evaluations. As an aside, it’s important to note what is **not** altered, specifically the fundamentals of the basketball recruiting calendar. It’s still 130 recruiting person-days during the academic year, and unless otherwise stated, nonscholastic (a.k.a. AAU) evaluations are prohibited.

Both plans would begin by replacing the two 10-day July evaluation periods with evaluations during the last three weekends in July. The move to weekends is to facilitate Proposal 2010-58-C, which would allow basketball coaches to work student-athletes out during the summer.

The model offered by the Group of Five would return coaches to the stands of AAU events in the spring, specifically during two weekends in late April. As is currently the rule in women’s basketball, if an SAT or ACT testing date fell on one of those weekends, the calendar should shift to accomodate.

The SEC’s model would not provide for April evaluations at all, scholastic or not. The spring evaluation period would be converted into strictly a contact period. One contact would be allowed at a prospect’s school, with another permitted at some other location. This mirrors football’s two permitted evaluations during the spring evaluation period.

While most of this seems major, aside from the SEC’s April contact-only period, much of it has been floated before. The revolutionary concept is the development of evaluation camps. The camps would be operated by USA Basketball and funded (including all participant expenses) by the NCAA and member conferences. Division I coaches would even work the camps, rotating to ensure fairness.

The SEC is bullish on these camps, with the model making them the only permissible nonscholastic evaluation events after a three-year period, eliminating AAU evaluations entirely. The other conferences see them as a pilot program, with no concrete plans to use them as a replacement for the AAU circuit. The NCAA, through iHoops, is already in this business with the Unsigned Prospects Program, but Division I coaches are currently prohibited from attending.

One of my pet peeves is when an NCAA initiative or idea is rejected for not being perfect. Either plan would be a major step forward, especially the deregulation of contacts and allowing official visits during the summer. Increasing the NCAA’s presence in nonscholastic basketball is a plus as well, especially by giving the NCAA and its coaches another role (event funder and camp employee).

Not everything is perfect — I’m not sold on tryouts, for instance — but I would hope the membership does not continue the “buffet” approach when a group offers a cohesive model. Weigh the good, weigh the bad, and take it or leave it. Either model, I would take.

But I disagree with the SEC that we would transition to an evaluation camp model. In fact, I believe either evaluation model should be the transition to something further from the current model. To do that, we need a legitimate competitor to grassroots AAU.

The AAU circuit currently allows a prospect to play year-round basketball. There are events virtually every weekend and during the week when AAU reaches its peak in July. I have trouble seeing how evaluation camps would be more than an addition or supplement to a prospect’s current options rather than a bona fide alternative.

Prospects want to get better. They want to earn a scholarship, make it to the league. That’s one of the reasons the ban on evaluating at AAU tournaments in April has been ineffective. Prospects are getting games in, getting experience. They’re getting better.

There’s a significant amount of debate over how much prospects have to play to get better. Some say any game is better than practice, other philosophies limit competition in favor of training and skill development. Quality vs. quantity of competition will be a never ending debate.

The evaluation camps outlined in the two models include plenty of scrimmages. But scrimmages between teams thrown together in short order, plus the pressure to impress with individual talent heightened by the camp atmosphere is a suspect example of elite competition.

Prospects clearly want year-round competition. To achieve the drastic change necessary in the recruiting environment, an alternative to the current bottom-up, grassroots AAU structure needs to be developed. Simply offering camps or expecting prospects to limit themselves to high school basketball will not be enough.

Building a viable alternative to AAU basketball will be an ambitious effort. It will likely require the input and support of USA Basketball, the NBA, and the NCAA. It will almost certainly be financed by Nike and adidas. And it will require thinking about not just where prospects will play basketball from April to September, but the entire way a prospect progresses, if lucky enough, from middle school basketball to the NBA.

This means what appears to be just a recruiting problem is also something of an amateurism problem. Right now, the NCAA is seen as at best a rest stop and at worst a roadblock on the way to the NBA. Create a path where youth basketball and the NCAA are more landmarks that speed bumps (to keep the road metaphor going) and it will attract prospects.

That doesn’t mean paying players. It means thinking about withdrawal dates. It means encouraging a professional league to invest in the development of its own prospects. And it means figuring out a better way to leverage the NCAA’s greatest strength for professional leagues: the only 18-23 year-old developmental league in the world, provided free of charge. And do it all with as little damage to the NCAA as possible.

The ultimate goal is not to figure out what set of complicated regulations should exist forever in order to keep a rein on a sport. Rather, the end goal is to help move toward a structure where all those rules aren’t needed and basketball could live under the same rules as all the other sports.

The proposals offered by the big conferences are an excellent first step. And something fairly close to one of those models should be implemented with some haste, presented to the membership next year if possible. That would put a new model in place as soon the 2012-2013 academic year.

Because it’s only one step and the clock is ticking. Not so much on basketball. There’s really nowhere to go but up in basketball. But there’s a world of possibilities in football. Someone is going to figure out nonscholastic football. Not 7-on-7. Real football, with pads and helmets, linemen and tackling. The faster the NCAA figures out nonscholastic basketball, the better chance that someone will be the NCAA.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog, Feature Tagged With: , ,

NCAA Rules That Could Have Been

April 18, 2011 by

The NCAA Division I Manual takes a lot of criticism for being a large and unwieldy beast full of esoteric and confusing rules. The size is a bit overstated, and much more complicated legal codes can be found. But the best way to defend what’s in the Manual is to point out what isn’t in the Manual.

Every year, about a hundred or so proposals are offered. Many tend to be adopted. And most are approved without much debate or controversy. But between the tendency of NCAA committees to go wherever the data points them and 31 conferences with their own ideas, sometimes proposals can go off the reservation. So here’s the 10 craziest NCAA rules of the last decade that never made it over the hump into the Manual.

#10: 2008-27

In women’s lacrosse, to specify that an institution’s athletics department staff member shall not arrange lodging for a prospective student-athlete on an unofficial visit in an enrolled student-athlete’s residence (e.g., dormitory room, apartment) until August 1 following the prospective student-athlete’s junior year in high school.

2008 began a series of innovative recruiting proposals that lead to a through review of the entire recruiting model that started in 2009 and continues to this day. Part of the impetus for that review was a series of proposals by the Ivy League in women’s lacrosse designed to test different recruiting reforms. The proposal even expressly stated that the concepts could be a pilot program in women’s lacrosse, then expanded to other sports.

The most specific among them was 2008-27, which sought to eliminate the unofficial official visit, where a junior prospect stays overnight, gets free tickets to games, but pays for her own food, transportation, and entertainment. All of the sport-specific legislation was defeated, although many of the concepts were combined in another proposal on the list the following year.

#9: 2010-76

In women’s basketball, to reduce the annual limit on the number of counters at each institution from 15 to 13.

The most recent proposal on the list, offered by the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, sought to reduce women’s basketball’s scholarships to the same level as men’s basketball.

The proposal is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is the only reduction in financial aid for a sport that has been proposed since 2000. Even men’s sports have gotten proposals seeking to increasing scholarship limits. And secondly was the MAAC’s “use it or lose it” rationale, pointing out that the average number of women’s basketball scholarships used was 13.08.

#8: 2007-23-A

In tennis, to specify that, prior to full-time collegiate enrollment, an individual may accept prize money based on his or her place finish or performance in open athletics events, not to exceed $10,000 per calendar year; further, to specify that once the individual has reached the $10,000 limit, he or she may receive additional prize money on a per event basis, provided such prize money does not exceed his or her actual and necessary expenses for participation in the event.

Division I has always struggled with regulating the amateur activities of prospective student-athletes, who often don’t know the rules but who are equally likely to be attempting to manipulate them. No where is that no prevalent or more highly regulated than tennis. But in 2007, tennis almost went off the deep end of deregulation.

2007-23-A would have allowed for a tennis prospect to pocket $10,000 per year in prize money and then continue to accept prize money, provided it was only for actual and necessary expenses in each event. The rationale was that tennis is exceedingly expensive to play at the elite level, and the $10,000 per year often just covers unitemized expenses. Sponsored by the Ivy League, both 2007-23-A and an alternative allowing $10,000 total were both defeated.

#7: 2003-69

To eliminate the requirement that each Division I member institution, at least once every 10 years, complete an institutional self-study, verified and evaluated through external peer review.

Certification is built into the fabric of Division I athletics at this point. Every 10 years a school studies itself, submits itself to a peer review, evaluates its progress over the last decade, and offers a plan for growing over the next 10 years.

Following the first cycle of certification and as the second cycle ramped up, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference decided the exercise had reached its conclusion. Claiming second cycle certification had produced “few tangible benefits,” the MAAC proposed to do away with continued certification of athletic departments, and proposed ongoing review of topical areas conducted by conferences. After drawing a sharp rebuke from the Committee on Athletic Certification, the MAAC withdrew the proposal.

#6: 2005-162

To specify that an individual who officially registers, enrolls and attends classes at one of the three national service academy official preparatory schools (i.e., Army, Navy, Air Force) prior to initial full-time collegiate enrollment shall not be subject to the contact limitations in Bylaw 13 and shall be considered a student-athlete for purposes of contact by athletics staff members at other Division I institutions.

Proposed by the Patriot League, home of Navy and Army, 2005-162 would have essentially turned into student-athletes anyone who enrolled at one of the official military prep schools. That means recruiting restrictions would not have applied, and anyone from another school seeking to recruit this prospects would have had to get permission to contact these high schoolers.

The rationale was that the United States Military was already investing substantial resources in these prospects, and thus they should be treated like student-athletes. While our service academies get a number of breaks in the NCAA legislation, a de facto farm system went too far and was seen as too much of a competitive advantage. Thus it was defeated.

#5: 2009-28-A

In women’s soccer, to revise or establish restrictions related to contacts, telephone calls official and unofficial visits, offers of financial aid and involvement in nonscholastic-based soccer programs, as specified.

There has been a lot of talk of recruiting models and comprehensive recruiting reform. But no single proposal capture an entire recruiting model quite like 2009-28-A. “As specified” meant no contact prior to August 1 before a prospect’s senior year in high school. That meant no unofficial visits, no phone calls made or received, no off-campus contacts, and no club coaching by college coaches, although official visits were moved up to August 1, allowing them to be taken before school started for prospects.

Proposed by the SEC, the fear amongst the membership was that August 1 would be a feeding frenzy of coaches who would pressure student-athletes to make a decision quickly to fill a recruiting class they were used to being finished with up to two years prior. Both this proposal and a companion offered by the Ivy League proposing many of the same restrictions for all sports were both defeated.

#4: 2004-121

In men’s basketball, to specify that the head men’s coach must annually develop an individual personal growth plan with each student-athlete using community and institutional resources; further, to require the coach to periodically meet with each student-athlete to ensure that appropriate progress is being made toward the objectives set forth in the student-athlete’s personal growth plan.

Offered as part of a package developed by the NABC, this proposal would have required the creation of a mentioning plan between head coaches and student-athletes in men’s basketball. It’s a far cry from the NABC’s recent stance of deregulating most men’s basketball activities outside of money funneling.

The unanswered question is how this would ever be monitored. Sure, plans could be created and filed. And meetings could be scheduled and tracked. But how would you ever know if a student-athlete was progressing along his personal growth plan? Sadly we’ll never know. The proposal was defeated, resoundingly so, by a vote of 41-4.

#3: 2001-69

To specify that there shall be no simultaneous telecasting or cablecasting of regular season intercollegiate football games on Friday nights.

There’s college football televised on almost every night. But back in 2001, the Atlantic Coast Conference proposed leaving Friday Night Lights for high school only. There was one catch though: a Friday game could be broadcast live if it finished by 7:00 PM everywhere it was broadcast. So had the ACC not withdrawn the proposal after it was introduced, perhaps college might have seen the Friday Night Dusk.

#2: 2002-97, 2006-86

To establish an NCAA Division I Nonscholarship Football Championship.

Twice since 2000, the Football Championship Subdivision teams that do not provide scholarships have asked for the NCAA’s assistance in creating their own national championship. Conference of nonscholarship FCS schools are not eligible for automatic bids and the individual schools are rarely, if ever, selected as at-large participants. On two separate occasions, the schools have tried to carve out their own unique niche.

2002-97 was to create an official NCAA championship for Division I FCS (I-AA at the time) nonscholaship football. 2006-96 asked to allow schools to exempt the games in a non-NCAA championship event for nonscholarship football programs. As the calls for a major college playoff get louder and louder, we almost had two Division I playoffs without including the big boys.

#1: 2000-103

To permit a student-athlete to obtain a loan (not to exceed $20,000) based on future earnings potential from a centralized lending institution, as specified.

First the particulars: it wasn’t all student-athletes. Only student-athletes that had qualified for the NCAA’s disability insurance for elite student-athletes. Currently, that would apply to student-athletes who are projected to be drafted in the first round of the NBA, MLB, or WNBA Draft or first three rounds of the NFL or NHL Draft. And it wasn’t a loan from just anyone but from a real bank.

The Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet sponsored the proposal through the Management Council, the predecessor to the Legislative Council. The Board of Directors did not yet have authority to sponsor legislation, so 2000-103 came from as close to the top as it could back then.

And the proposal was never actually defeated in an up and down vote. It was tabled and forgotten until 2008 when the shift to the current governance structure finally killed the proposal. It may not be paying athletes exactly, but it’s the most surprising rule that could have been from the last 10 years.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office.

About John Infante

The opinions expressed on this blog are the author’s and the author’s alone, and are not endorsed by the NCAA or any NCAA member institution or conference. This blog is not a substitute for a compliance office. If you’re a coach, do not attempt to contact the author looking for a second opinion. If you’re a parent, don’t attempt to contact the author looking for a first opinion. Compliance professionals are by their nature helpful people generally dedicated to getting to the truth. Coaches should have a bit of faith in their own, and parents should talk to one directly.

Filed Under: Bylaw Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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