Friday, February 25, 2011

Coastal Carolina Under NCAA Investigation

Coastal Carolina Teams Offer Possible Impermissible Benefits

Coastal Carolina, who is having a great year on the field, is now rumored to be under investigation for possibly providing impermissible benefits to recruit players.  The article mentions that a former player may have been dissatisfied with his experience at Coastal Carolina and tipped off NCAA investigators.  It just goes to show that you never know where the NCAA gets its leads, but when they get a lead, they will follow up on it. 

The article also mentions that one recruit recieved a "care package" for signing with CCU, which may have included clothes among other things.  Please remember that a violation can be considered major if it provides the school/individual with more than a minimal recruiting or competitive advantage.  A care package would certainly be considered an extra benefit, especially if given to a prospective student-athlete, and if that is something that would sway a student into signing with a particular university.

Summer Tuition Rates Released

NAU- Summer 2011 Tuition Rates

NAU has now released tuition rates for this upcoming 2011 summer session.  Rates can be found at the link above.  Now that these are released, I will calculating scholarship rates and will release those as soon as I am done with that. 

Our Summer School committee should be making the summer school aid application available to student-athlete's in the near future as well.  Once dates and deadlines are set for the applications we will be sure to share those with all coaches.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Compliance Tip of the Week #10

Electronic Communications to PSA

For this weeks tip of the week we have another video for you (courtesy of LSU).  This weeks topic is electronic transmissions to PSA.  It is a quick video and has a lot of good information regarding social networking sites and the do's & don'ts of social networking with the students you are recruiting. 

Oklahoma FB Loses Week of CARA Activities

Oklahoma Football Tracks Voluntary Workouts

The OU football team has been required to provide football players with one week off from countable athletically related activities this spring for secondary violations in the program.  The biggest issue that seems to have resulted in this penalty is that several coaches were asking players for reports on voluntary lifting or practice sessions resulting in exceeding the 8 hour a week limit for out of season CARA activities.  It appears another coach may have been receiving reports on the practice sessions from a strength & conditioning coach, which would also be a violation. Please remember that strength coaches may conduct voluntary workouts, but may not provide reports to the coaches on either attendance or performance at those sessions. While a week off from practice activities may seem harsh for a secondary violation, please remember that exceeding the weekly limit caries a prescribed two for one penalty.  Since they are in their eight hour per week timeframe, it doesn't seem unreasonable that the practice limit was exceeded by four hours.

The article also talks about several other secondary infractions that may have occurred including exceeding the phone call limits to PSA's and texting PSA's who have not yet signed NLI's.

Monday, February 21, 2011

NCAA Enforcement Staff Expands Its Focus

Enforcement to Look Into Football Recruiting

In the near future, members of the NCAA enforcement staff are going to team with people from the NCAA's Agents, Gambling & Amateurism (AGA) department to take a look at recruiting issues in collegiate football.  This article outlines what they hope to accomplish, but it appears that their goals are to work with agents and other influential groups in prep football to build relationships and develop policies in conjunction with these outside groups.

It is not clear at this point if they will develop a "Football Focus Group" similar to the "Basketball Focus Group" that is currently in place, but looking at the impact the BFG has had on basketball recruiting it seems like a logical next step to look deeper into football issues.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Northeastern Hockey Coach Suspended

Hockey Coach Suspended Pending Investigation

Greg Cronin, the head Men's Ice Hockey coach at Northeastern, as well as one of his assistant coaches have been suspended by the school after impermissible phone calls and text messages were discovered.  From what has been publicly released so far, it appears that the school is working with their all-sports conference, the Colonial Athletic Association, and not the Hockey East.  Coming from a hockey school myself, I know that sport specific conferences don't have the same staffing as a full conference would have. 

In any case, the school appears to be taking their finding very seriously as they have suspended two coaches right after finding out about the potential violations.  That does not sound good for the school or the coach, there very well could have been prior instances of impermissible phone calls at Northeastern, or what they uncovered was a large number of impermissible calls/texts over a short period of time.  The investigation could very well go on for weeks, or even months, it will be interesting to see if Coach Cronin is back on the bench at all this season with conference tournaments in just two weeks.  The serious actions by the school right away signal that the school is taking the matter very seriously.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Compliance Tip of the Week #9

Today's tip of the week is regarding the delayed enrollment proposal that was passed around this time last year.  It was called 2009-22 a year ago, and it carries an effective date of August 1, 2011, when it be called Bylaw 14.2.3.2 covering delayed enrollment.  If you are not familiar with the text of the bylaw, here is how it will read in next years NCAA manual:

14.2.3 Criteria for Determining Season of Competition.
[14.2.3.1 unchanged.]
14.2.3.2 Delayed Enrollment -- Seasons of Competition.
14.2.3.2.1 Sports Other Than Men's Ice Hockey, Skiing and Tennis, Swimming and Diving and Women's VolleyballA In sports other than men's ice hockey, skiing and tennis, a student-athlete who does not enroll in a collegiate institution as a full-time student in a regular academic term during a one-year time period after his or her high school graduation date or the graduation date of his or her class (as determined by the first year of high school enrollment or the international equivalent as specified in the NCAA Guide to International Academic Standards for Athletics Eligibility and based on the prescribed educational path in the student-athlete's country), whichever occurs earlier, shall be subject to the following:
(a) The student-athlete shall be charged with a season of intercollegiate eligibility for each calendar year after the one-year time period (the next opportunity to enroll after one calendar year has elapsed) and prior to full-time collegiate enrollment during which the student-athlete has participated in organized events competition per Bylaw 14.2.3.5.3 14.02.9.
(b) After the one-year time period, if the student-athlete has engaged in events competition per Bylaw 14.2.3.5.3 14.02.9, on matriculation at the certifying institution, the student-athlete must fulfill an academic year in residence before being eligible to represent the institution in intercollegiate competition.
If you remember our discussions from last spring, it means that students will have a one year window following their high school graduation date to compete in outside competitions.  If they continue to compete in outside competitions beyond that date, they will be subject to the penalties listed in (a) and (b) above.

We are currently checking graduation dates of students who have signed NLI's or who we know will be enrolling in the fall to determine who we may need to follow up with.  If your sport has a PSA in that situation, we will be in touch with you about that.  If there is a student who you feel we should get in touch with, please let us know who they are so that we can follow up as well.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Compliance Tip of the Week #8

Fruits, Nuts & Bagels Video

Please take a minute and watch this video on the Fruits, Nuts & Bagels bylaw, also known as Bylaw 16.5.2 (h).  I will let the video explain the rest, but please remember that providing fruits, nuts or bagels is permissible at any time, however, we are not allowed to provide them with spreads and toppings for the fruits, nuts and bagels.

The video is courtesy of the LSU Compliance office.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Compliance Tip of the Week #7

This weeks Tip of the Week concerns book scholarship and the recent adoption of NCAA proposal 2010-75.  Below is the actual text of how the bylaw will read, but to sum things up, when calculating scholarship values the cost of books will be changing from the current $400 to $800.  Also, once this becomes effective any student recieving any portion of a books scholarship will be counted as $800/$800; in other words, there are no longer any partial books scholarships (for purposes of calculating the equivalency).

Practically, if you are an equivalency sport and you are offering a student a partial scholarship with no books, it will decrease all of the other values in that student's equivalency.  Similarly, if you are offering a student a partial scholarship with books, it will bump that value up a little bit.  And for students on a full scholarship, obviously it will have no effect.
Please note that proposal 2010-75 has an effective date of August 1st, 2013.

Here is the text of the legislation:

Bylaws: Amend 15.5.3.2.1, as follows:
15.5.3.2.1 Additional Requirements. The following additional requirements shall apply to equivalency computations: 
[15.5.3.2.1-(a) through 15.5.3.2.1-(b) unchanged.]
(c) Books shall count for calculation purposes as $400 800 in the denominator.  If a student-athlete receives any portion of a full book allowance for the academic year, the institution must use $400 800 in the denominator and numerator for books, regardless of the actual cost of the books.  If a student-athlete receives less than the full book allowance, the institution must determine the fraction of book aid and must use the appropriate numerator based on the $400 denominator to reflect the fraction of the book allowance actually received.
And here is an interesting link that discusses the impact of 2010-75:

CCACA Discussion of 2010-75

If you are interested in hearing more about Proposals from this years legislative cycle with effective dates of August 1, 2011, please come to the Legislative Review session next Tuesday February 15th at 11:00AM.  The Review will be held in the conference room at the Athletics South facility.

Two-Year Transfer Concepts Revisited

NCAA Looks to Revamp Two-Year Transfer Legislation

If you remember back to December, the Compliance Office asked for your input on some proposed changes to the two-year transfer legislation.  The NCAA's Academics Cabinet met to review feedback that was provided and decide on the best way to move forward.  It now appears that if any changes are adopted, it would likely come with an effective date of August 1, 2013.  They also have some additional insight into the "academic year of readiness" that has been proposed for NCAA Nonqualifers who attend a Junior College.  There is some interesting information provided on how that might be implemented.

We have our monthly BigSky compliance call tomorrow morning, and we expect to hear more about what type of discussion went on at the Academics Cabinet meeting.  I will be sure to pass along any additional updates I get to you at the New Legislation Review, which is going to be held next Tuesday February 15th at 11:00AM in the Athletics South conference room.  Another good reason to attend the legislative review.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Half of FBS schools committed a major violation in the last decade

NCAA Major Infractions at the FBS Level

The results of this recent study by Inside Higher Education have been making the rounds lately.  Their article sites the fact that 53 of the 120 FBS schools were found to have committed a major NCAA infraction within the last ten years (2000 - 2010).  While I doubt they cited my 178 page graduate school thesis on this topic, their analysis does point to three of the common causes of NCAA major violations in the research that is out there:
  • That major violations have grown in number because the NCAA enforcement staff has grown in size
  • That there are "bad apple" schools and/or coaches that are the ones getting caught committing major violations
  • That the NCAA rules are so complex that an indirect cause of that is schools committing violations because the rules are so hard to keep up with
The article then goes on to talk about the increase in violations in the areas of acacemic honesty and eligibility.  The article has quotes from both Gene Marsh and Jo Portuto, two of the best FAR's in the business (both retired) and both former members of the NCAA Committee on Infractions.  It is an interesting read and I would recommend it if you have a few minutes.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

KU Attendance Policy

KU Makes Sure SA's Attend Class

As an alternative to Attendance Sheets, the Kansas athletic department employes retirees to walk around campus and check on the attendance of various KU student-athletes.  It is quite the alternative to attendance sheets, but according to the article several other schoools use students to check on the attendance of student-athletes.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Don't Bet On It!!!!

NCAA Super Bowl Gambling Reminder

Just a friendly reminder that NCAA Bylaw 10.3 prohibits gambling on NCAA sponsored sports at any level if you are a current student-athlete, coach or other athletic staff member.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

USC's Kiffin In Trouble for His Time at Tennessee

NCAA Decision on Tennessee Recruiting Scandal Looms

This is an interesting article discussing Lane Kiffin and the time he spent at UT two years ago.  If you remember back about 15 months there was the controversy around a few of the schools "Hostesses" who drove to South Carolina to watch the game of potential UT recruits.  NCAA Bylaw 13.01 lays out who can recruit off campus and also makes clear that the University is responsible for recruiting activities undertaken by the school.  Unless you are a countable member of the coaching staff who has passed the NCAA recruiting test, you should not be recruiting PSA's. Period. 

What seems to be the new information that has come out in this article is that one of the UT coaches was encouraging these "Hostesses" to call/Facebook the UT recruits in order to recruit them and/or gather information on how their other visits have gone.  This is a big don't for any coach; you should never encourage current student-athlete's, current students or boosters to have interaction with PSA's at any time.  It appears all of this has lead to rumors that UT will be charged with "Failure to Monitor" the actions of its football staff during the 09/10 year.  The interesting twist to this that they may penalize Kiffin and the other coach for their actions at UT, even though both coaches are now with new schools.  As the article points out this is not new, but may be somewhat uncommon in NCAA violations.  If it turns out to be true, it just goes to show you that you can't escape your past just by heading off to a new school.

Compliance Tip of the Week #6

For those of you who celebrated National Letter of Intent signing day yesterday, please remember that many of the restrictions that you have relating to the form and frequency of contact with PSA's get lifted the day after a PSA signs a valid NLI with Northern Arizona University.
  • Bylaw 13.1.3.3.3 allows you to have unlimited phone contact with a PSA beginning with the day after they sign their NLI.
  • Bylaw 13.1.7.17 allows you to have unlimited evaluations of a PSA beginning the day after they have signed an NLI.
    • Even though we may have unlimited contacts/evaluations with a PSA, please remember that we must still follow Bylaw 13.1.6.2, which governs contacts at a practice or competition site.  This Bylaw needs to be followed for all PSA's, even those who have signed with us.
  • Finally, Bylaw 13.4.1.2.1 states that there are no limits on the forms of electronic communication you may use to contact a student who has signed an NLI with us, beginning the day after they have signed with us.  For students who signed yesterday, this means you may now send them unlimited texts (I hope you don't do that), Facebook them, Tweet with them or have any other kind of electronic communication you can think of with them.
I'm glad yesterday went smoothly and we were able to sign a good group of future Lumberjacks!!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Top Recruits Mother Forges Signature

Ole' Miss Recruits Mother Forges Signature

In one of the weirder stories you will see from signing day, one of the top DB's in the nation, Floyd Raven, has his mother forge his signature and fax it in to the University of Mississippi without his knowledge.  The Ole' Miss AD had some fun with this on twitter and called it a "soft NLI".  Houston Nutt addressed the issue in his press conference, which is also odd because technically Raven did not sign a valid NLI with the Rebels; but this case appears so unique that it would probably need to be addressed by the University at some point.  As for Raven, earlier this evening he signed a valid NLI with Texas A&M and will be off to College Station next year.

It has been a long, but successful day, here at Nothern Arizona University.  I have been camped out by the fax machine for almost 13 hours now and will be heading home shortly.

Information on the NAU signing class can be found here at the Signing Day Central on the NAU Athletics official website.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

National Letter of Intent: Signing Day February 2nd

Right now we are a little less than 15 hours from National Letter of Intent signing day here at Northern Arizona University.  Tomorrow morning at 7:00AM fax machines in athletic departments all across the country will be receiving NLI documents from high school students in many different sports.  Here at NAU it will be signing day for our women's soccer team, men's and women's XC/track & field teams as well as the football team.

Once a prospective student signs and submits a valid NLI document, they are committed to attending that school for one full academic year.  That student is also then off the market, they cannot be actively recruited by other schools after signing an NLI; and for coaches here, the day after we receive a valid NLI our coaches can have increased contact with their commitments.  If you are a booster checking in here, please remember that you are not allowed to interact with any prospective student-athlete until that student has attended either a class or an official practice in the fall according to Bylaw 13.01.4.

If you are curious to read more about what a National Letter of Intent is, or how the process works, below are a couple of interesting articles that offer some information about that big day in February (not the Super Bowl):

Evolution of the NLI

Improving the NLI: From a Compliance Perspective

We hope to have a busy day tomorrow here in the Athletics Department.  As always, NAU Athletics will have all the latest news on the signing as they come in tomorrow morning.