It is important to learn from other people's mistakes (honest mistakes), and we can all do that in this case. Derek Dooley, Head football coach at the University of Tennessee, posted a message on the Facebook wall of a PSA. Dooley posted the message from his cell phone. NCAA Bylaw 13.4.1.2 states that electronic communication with recruits is limited to emails and faxes; until the day after they return a valid NLI to us.
Then the NCAA clarified this in an educational column from October of 2009. The Ed Column stated that it is permissible to communicate with PSA's by using the private messages on Facebook/Twitter/ other social networking sites. However, what Dooley did, posting on the public wall of a PSA was impermissible communication. Posting a message on the public wall (or using the @ feature on Twitter) makes those messages public, which we are not allowed to do- again, until we have a valid NLI from a PSA. If you do use your cell phone to facebook recruits, be sure you know where the message is being sent. It appears that Dooley made an honest mistake and put his private message on the recruits' public wall.
So, what about becoming friends with a recruit on facebook? That is alright as long as the PSA is old enough to receive the "friend request" email that is automatically generated by facebook. So to be friends with a PSA, the PSA would need to be old enough to send an email to. The following is a quote from that October 2009 Ed Column:
Institutions should also note that in accordance with Bylaw 13.10.2, before the signing of a prospective student-athlete to a National Letter of Intent or an institution's written offer of admission and/or financial aid, a member institution may comment publicly only to the extent of confirming its recruitment of the prospective student-athlete. The institution may not comment generally about the prospective student-athlete's ability or the contribution that the prospective student-athlete might make to the institution's team; further, the institution is precluded from commenting in any manner as to the likelihood of the prospective student-athlete's signing with that institution.Social media and recruiting is a complex, and constantly evolving, issue to deal with. If you have questions about how to permissibly use Facebook/Twitter/Skype or anything else, please come by the compliance office and ask before doing anything.
Accordingly, although it is permissible for a prospective student-athlete's name and/or picture to appear on an athletics department staff member's profile page of a social networking Web site to identify the prospective student-athlete as a "friend" of the athletics department staff member, staff members may not initiate or accept such requests until such time that it is permissible to send electronically transmitted correspondence to a prospective student-athlete. Institutions should note that the identification of the prospective student-athlete as a "friend" on an athletics staff members profile page confirms only the institution's potential recruitment of that individual. However, institutions are reminded they may not make any public comments about the prospective student-athlete's ability, the contribution that the prospective student-athlete might make to the institution's team or the likelihood of the prospective student-athlete's signing with that institution.
