DEAD PERIOD REMINDER

This reminder is applicable to Football, Men's and Women's Track & Field and Women's Soccer.

  Please remember that there is a dead period surrounding NLI signing date next week.  The dead period begins at 12:01AM on Monday January 31^st and runs through 11:59PM on Thursday February 3^rd.

During the dead period there can be no in-person contacts or evaluations with prospective student-athlete’s, we also cannot permit official or unofficial visits during that period of time.  You may have phone conversation with a recruit during a dead period.  Please plan your week accordingly.

Compliance Tip of the Week #5

The tip of the week this week comes from Chapter 17 on playing and practice seasons.  Please remember that when we have a home contest, student-athletes cannot miss class time for practice activities on that day.

From Bylaw 17.1.6.6.1 on practice activities:

Missed Class Time for Practice Activities (I)
Date Published: June 11, 2010
Item Ref: 1
Interpretation:
The committee determined that a student-athlete may not miss class at any time (e.g., regular academic term, mini term, summer term) for practice activities, except when a team is traveling to an away-from-home contest and the practice is in conjunction with the contest.
[References: NCAA Bylaw 17.1.6.6.1 (no class time missed for practice activities) and a staff interpretation (8/20/97, Item No. a), which has been archived]

Tennessee Basketball Avoids Violation

Tennessee's Woolridge Scouts Locations for Video

As we started the second semester last week, I met with each team individually to discuss several important topics; one of which is extra benefits.   My point was to remind everyone that extra benefits can be many things, it does not have to be a wad of cash, a free car or a free bag of clothes- even though that is what immediately comes to mind when you mention extra benefits.

Although the people at Tennessee determined that this incident was not a case of extra benefits, it is a prime example of what I stated above.  Things like free rides home, discounts on rentals or purchase or any special arrangement that is due to a student's reputation as a student-athlete could be considered an extra benefit.  In other words, if the bar let Renaldo Woolridge film his video in the banquet room free of charge, and they would have charged a rental fee to other students/ general public then that could very well constitute an extra benefit under Bylaw 16.11.2.  From what has been reported, it seems the bar let Renaldo "check out" the room for possible future use, which I'm sure they would let anyone do; thus, avoiding the violation.  Nonetheless, the scenario, had it gone down, is an excellent illustration of the point I was trying to make with all of your teams last week regarding Extra Benefits.

Be a Five-Star Student-Athlete for a Day

Survive an NCAA investigation

This is a quick and interesting game put out by some people at North Carolina.  It puts you in the position of a star athlete and makes you chose how to handle different people on campus.  It only takes a minute, check it out and put your NCAA knowledge to the test while in the shoes of a star athlete.

Compliance Tip of the Week #4

NCAA Bylaw 13.4.1 Recruiting Materials & 13.4.1.1.1 Express Mail Services

Please remember that printed recruting materials cannot be sent to Prospective Student-Athletes prior to September 1st of their junior years of High School.  Though anything that you send to a prospective student-athlete must comply with the regulations of Bylaw 13.4.  Non-athletics institutional publications, such as admissions packets and information may be sent at any time.

Also remember when you are preparing a mailing, it must be sent via first class mail (or a lesser level) and we cannot add tracking or delivery confirmaiton.  The one exception for this is NLI documents, these can be overnighted or sent via FedEx.

Secondary Violations at UGA

UGA Reports 14 Secondary Violations

The attached article provides a quick run-down of the 14 secondary violations committed at the University of Georgia in the second half of 2010.  It is an interesting list that covers a range of violations.  Over the past year several schools have released limited information regarding their secondary violations.  It is an interesting list to look through, some of the violations included the following:

• Texting a prospective student-athlete
• Posting on a PSA's public Facebook wall
• Allowing current student-athletes to appear in advertisements
• Paying for a siblings meal on an official visit

Compliance Tip of the Week #3

Coaches, we have two bonus tips of the weeks for you today.  These are both relating to school starting back up on Tuesday.

#1: With school starting again on Tuesday, please remember that we will need to start keeping track of all CARA activities again on your weekly logs.  Logs for the first week of second semester will be due to the compliance office no later than Noon on Thursday January 27th.

#2:  Requirements for Practice:  Please remind all of your student-athletes that to be eligible to participate in practice activities they need to be enrolled in a full-time course load of 12 units or more, per Bylaw 14.1.8.1.  Compliance and academics will be checking this all week to keep you updated.  As you know, there is an exception to this Bylaw for the first week of class, the exception is Bylaw 14.1.8.1.5.  We will be checking enrollment status in the afternoon next Friday January 21st, anyone not enrolled FT by then will be changed to a NO for practice on the ESR starting Saturday January 22nd.  Please encourage your kids to get in a full-time course load now before classes fill up.

We will be generating ESR's for all teams on Tuesday afternoon, expect to see those in your email then.  Hard copies will also be placed in your mailboxes.

Best of luck this semester, let's make it a good one for Lumberjack Athletics!!!

NCAA Student-Athlete Survey

NCAA GOALS Survery

The NCAA Convention is going on this week in San Antonio.  There is lots of news that is constantly coming from the convention that is interesting to me, and I thought this article might be interesting to the coaches.  It is a summary of the NCAA GOALS survey, which has now been conducted twice.  It collects information from actual student-athlete's from across all three divisions.  They are asked questions about the recruiting process, how they chose their school, their academic goals and graduation rates as well as their time demands as student-athletes. 

The link is not the actual survey results, rather a summary of the results written by NCAA staff.  The article does an excellent job highlighting some of the more interesting points of the study.

Compliance Tip of the Week #2

Coaches & staff, please remember that school starts back up again next week.  Many of you, especially fall sports coaches, will have student-athletes returning to campus who exhausted their eligibility this past fall.  Please remember that these student's are still considered student-athletes until the day that they walk across the stage this May. 

Therefore, all of the same rules that apply to other student-athletes regarding extra benefits still apply to these students, even though they do not have any remaining eligibility.  That means no taking them out for lunch or dinner, no giving them rides across town, home, to the airport or to where ever.  They need to be treated the same way as any other student-athlete on campus.

NAU Bookstore Hours

NAU Bookstore- January Hours

The above link has the hours for the NAU Bookstore this week.  They will be open this Sunday and Monday for students to go and pick up their books.  Spring book accounts are now active at the Bookstore as well, student-athletes need to bring a picture ID with them in order to access their book account.

Please remind you students to take advantage of the book rental program to save money.

Compliance Tip of the Week #1

Jav A. Lynn is a student at College USA.  Jav decided to try out for the women's track at the beginning of the spring 2011 term.  Jav has been practicing for five days and will compete in College USA's home meet this weekend.  Which statement is true?

A.  Jav does not have to complete the NCAA Drug-Testing Consent form until she has participated in countable athletically related activities for 14 days.

B.  Jav must complete the NCAA Drug-Testing Consent form prior to competing in the meet this weekend.

C.  Jav must complete the Student-Athlete Statement prior to competing in the meet this weekend.

D.  Both B & C are true

The answer is D.  NCAA Bylaw 14.1.3.1 states that prior to participation in intercollegiate competition each academic year, a student-athlete shall sign a statement in a form prescribed by the Legislative Council in which the student athlete submits information related to eligibility, recruitment, financial aid, amateur status, previous positive-drug tests administered by any other athletics organization and involvement in organized gambling activities related to intercollegiate or professional athletics competition under the Association's governing legislation. Failure to complete and sign the statement shall result in the student-athlete's ineligibility for participation in all intercollegiate competition. Violations of this bylaw do not affect a student-athlete's eligibility if the violation occurred due to an institutional administrative error or oversight, and the student-athlete subsequently signs the form; however, the violation shall be considered an institutional violation per Constitution 2.8.1.

Please keep this tip in mind if you have any new student-athletes on campus for the spring semester.
Thank you to Jennifer Conderas of the BigEast Conference for providing this tip of the week.

Winter Break Dining Hall Hours

NAU- Winter Break Dining Hall Hours

The above link is a listing of the NAU Dining Hall hours between now and the first day of classes second semester.  This week, the only option that is open is Starbucks in the Student Union.  Next week there are a few more options opening up.  The all-you-can-eat options in the DuBois center opens with Breakfast next Monday January 10th.

Spring meal plans begin with Breakfast on Saturday January 15th, residence halls also reopen for spring semester at 9:00AM.  Until then the dining halls will be cash/credit only; though students with dining dollars remaining from the fall semester can use those unitl spring semester meal plans being on January 15th.

NCAA Reinstatement Decisions

Consistency in NCAA Reinstatement Decisions

Recently, the media has given a lot of attention to the NCAA decision making process, specifically the recent decisions in high profile student-athlete reinstatement cases.  The NCAA has been criticized for appearing to be inconsistent with their rulings and even "making it up as they go". 

This article by one of the NCAA.org bloggers (and also a compliance professional at another Division I school) does a very nice job at addressing some of those claims and gives some insight into the student-athlete reinstatement/ violation reporting process.