College football recruiting: There has to be a better way

story by Gary Brown, president of College Sports Matchups (CSM is a content partner with The City Wire)
[email protected]

How can you tell the NCAA is a bloated organization with too much of a bureaucratic mindset? Look at the rules for recruiting. If you are really bored some afternoon go spend some time reading the information and rules regarding recruiting.

If you find it interesting then you might want to read the tax code next.

In spite of all these rules, an NCAA committee wants to restrict coaches from offering scholarships to athletes in all sports until July 1 after their junior year, or after at least five semesters or seven quarters of high school academic work.

Why? Has an increasing number of rules done anything to stop some coaches from cutting corners to earn a recruits signature on signing day? Hardly, they just become more and more creative in their efforts to be in front of kids.

Individual schools rack up numerous secondary violations annually, which result in hundreds of indiscretions every year that range from the “stupid mistake” category to the “we are fudging things just a little” column. In compliance office circles it is even acknowledged that not turning in a few of these small offenses each year can cause the NCAA to be suspicious of a school’s internal auditing.

Stop and think about this for a minute. The NCAA has created a system that wants its members to self-report violations so they can know the rules are being followed. The whole system sounds like something created by the IRS.

Here are two opinions about any system of rules: First, whenever it becomes so you can’t help but break the rules the system has become too complex. Second, when something is already too complex the key is not to add more complexity, but to simplify.

So, how can the current process schools and prospects endure to achieve the annual harvest of student-athletes be simplified? Here are a few ideas to get the conversation started.
• Any prospective student-athlete must be academically qualified to be offered a scholarship to a school.
• 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.

The results of simplifying the rules to these basics will be a reduction in time coaches use to recruit players, a reduction in expenses incurred by schools to woo prospective athletes, and fewer interruptions in the lives of the student-athletes, who should go through their college decision much the same way other students do. Another by-product of this rule simplification will be to create a more level playing field for schools that do not have large budgets for recruiting.

So, who will be opposed to this idea? For starters, websites and newsletters devoted to recruiting, schools that have significant budgets for obtaining talent, high school coaches who like to rub elbows with college coaches and elite players who relish the exposure of the recruiting trifecta (media, fans, and coaches).

Who will be a fan of the new rules? Parents who want their kids to have a normal life, high school coaches looking for fewer distractions for their teams, and college coaches who would like to see the current process made less complex.

Will we see the NCAA throw out the current complex way of handling recruits, and move to something that can be accomplished with a single sheet of paper?

We probably have a better chance of a simplified tax code, and don’t bet on either occurring in this lifetime. You should probably plan for just the opposite. What governing bodies tend to do when things become too complex is create more rules.