Compliance Tip of the Week

The volleyball coaches at Ocean State University are planning their recruiting trips for this spring.  There are several tournaments they want to attend but have to make sure they do not exceed the total number of evaluation days or the maximum number of evaluations per prospect.

Here is the plan for the next recruiting trip:

Assistant Coach attends a tournament Friday, Saturday and Sunday and watches 8 different teams

Head Coach attends the same tournament Saturday and Sunday and watches 4 teams…the same as the assistant coach

How many evaluation days were utilized?

How many total evaluations were utilized?

A.      5 evaluation days and 1 evaluation

B.      2 evaluation days and 1 evaluation

C.      1 evaluation day and 1 evaluation

D.     5 evaluation days and 2 evaluations

The answer is A.  The assistant coach used 3 evaluation days and the head coach used 2 evaluation days even though they were at the same event at the same time.  NCAA Bylaw 13.02.7.2 states that an evaluation day is defined as one coach engaged in the evaluation of any prospective student-athlete on one day (12:01 a.m. to midnight).  Two coaches making evaluations on the same day shall use two evaluation days. The combined total of such days for all staff members shall not exceed 210 in football (270 for U.S. service academies) [42 during the fall evaluation period (54 for U.S. service academies) and 168 during the spring evaluation period (216 for U.S. academies)], 50 in softball and 80 in women's volleyball. (Adopted: 1/9/96 effective 8/1/96, Revised: 1/12/99 effective 8/1/99, 4/27/00 effective 8/1/01, 4/25/02 effective 8/1/02, 4/28/05 effective 8/1/05, 1/14/08 effective 8/1/08, 4/14/08, 1/16/10 effective 8/1/10)
Because the event was a tournament conducted on consecutive days, the coaches only used one evaluation for the prospects they watched.  NCAA Bylaw 13.1.7.15 state that evaluation during each day of a tournament held during the academic year shall count as a separate evaluation except as follows (see Bylaw 13.1.4.1.4.1):  (Revised:  3/22/06)

(a) Evaluation of multiple contests in a tournament that occurs on consecutive days (and normally at the same site) shall count as a single evaluation.

(b) Evaluation of multiple contests in a single tier of a tournament (e.g., sectional, district, regional) shall count as a single observation.  If a particular tier of a tournament is subdivided into identifiable segments (e.g., conducted on different weekends), evaluation of contests in each identifiable segment counts as a single observation.  (Revised:  1/14/97)

Thanks to Jennifer Conderas at the BigEast Conference for the excellent example on recruiting days.

Cost of Living Stipend Feedback

Funding Student-Athlete Stipends Adds to Northwestern's Costs

As schools all over the country are beginning to address whether or not they have the financial support to fund the full $2,000 cost of living stipends recently approved by the NCAA Board of Directors, even some schools at the BCS level are finding that they may struggle to support the stipends.  While some conferences are getting involved and either mandating the stipends, or prohibiting them, the decision will still come down to the individual schools in most cases.  Bigger schools have more revenue streams from a variety of sources, but the proposition of adding several hundred thousand dollars to the budget is not something to glance over.  In order to receive the stipends, a student must already be on a full scholarship and bigger schools also have more students on the full ride scholarships, meaning more costs associated with the stipends.  While the cost implications are certainly a major factor when looking at the stipends, there can also be potential Title IX implications as well, something this article touches on as well.  That is going to depend on what prong a school is using to comply with Title IX, but issues can certainly arise if a school is looking to add the stipend for many of their male athletes on full rides; doing that may certainly mean that the school will need to provide the stipend to at least a portion of their female athletes on full scholarships. 

President Emmert is quoted in the article as saying that fine tuning of the BOD legislation that was passed will take place over the coming years, which is a reversal of how the NCAA legislative process normally works.  It will certainly be interesting to see what, if any, modifications are made to the financial aid and eligibility issues as we move towards these being implemented across the NCAA membership.

The Great Baseball Card Debate

Russell Wilson's Baseball Card for Sale on eBay

The University of Wisconsin Compliance Office is sending out cease-and-desist emails to eBay selleres who have Russell Wilson's baseball card up for auction.  While the article is a bit cynical about NCAA amateurism rules, it is not uncommon for Compliance Offices to send out these notifications companies or publications that use the photo of a current student-athlete without anyone at the Athletics Department's knowledge.  Commonly, this happens when a photo is taken off of the athletics website and re-used without anyone's knowledge.  This case is a bit unique because Wilson is a legitimate two sport athlete and the card company got his photo at spring training.  As long as either the student or the University make an effort to stop the amateurism violation that is occurring, that will be sufficient in most cases, but it is not uncommon to see this type of reaction to a possible Bylaw 12.5.2.2 issue.

Impact of the NCAA Board of Director's Changes

NCAA Legislation will Impact Initial Eligibility

The Atlanta Journal Constitution provides some interesting insight into the new initial eligibility requirements that were approved last month by the NCAA Board of Directors.  According to research data put out by the NCAA, 43% of men's basketball players who initially enrolled in college for the 09/10 school year would not have met the recently approved initial eligibility standards.  That same number for football was at 35% and when looking at all student-athlete's initially enrolling in 09/10 was just over 15%.  While the new eligibility requirements do not bring back partial-qualifiers, students who meet the current eligibility requirements will still be allowed to receive aid and practice in their first year; the difference being that these students will automatically be eligible for four years of competition following their "academic redshirt".

Initial eligibility was not the only area addressed by the BOD, they also revised the APR standards and penalty structures.  The new APR benchmark will be 930 over a four year period, an increase of five points from the previous benchmark score.  The penalty structure will also be changing to reflect the renewed focus on academics.

The good news with all of this is that both the APR and the initial/transfer eligibility requirements will be phased in over the next several years.  The APR benchmarks will be implemented over the next three year period, while the freshman eligibility requirements will go into effect for the Fall of 2015/16- which are this year's current HS freshman.

If you would like to get a more detailed description of all of these requirements, please plan to attend the Monthly Coaches Compliance Workshop, which will be tomorrow morning (Wednesday November 16th) at 10:30AM.  The meeting will be held in the HLC Conference Room.  We hope to see you there!

Men's Basketball Coaches, Recruits Weigh in on Rules Changes

Feedback on New NCAA MBB Recruiting Model

Last Thursday the NCAA Board of Directors met with the purpose of reviewing NCAA rules and regulations in several areas.  Among the areas that the Board touched on were initial eligibility requirements, transfer eligibility requirements, APR benchmarks, scholarships and recruiting issues in Men's Basketball.

This article offers interesting insight into the legislation that was modified in Men's Basketball because it reached out for opinions from current DI Men's basketball coaches, AAU coaches, recruits and the parents of recruits. Several of the revisions that were made were targeted at allowing college coaches earlier access to recruits.  While this may seem counter intuitive from an NCAA standpoint, the idea in the Men's Basketball world is that allowing earlier access directly to the recruits will cut down on the influence that third parties will have on the recruiting process.

Each piece of legislation enacted by the Board of Directors will carry a different effective date.  Changes to the APR and to initial/ transfer eligibility will go into effect two to four years from now.  This will allow coaches and student-athlete's to plan to meet the new standards established by the legislation.  As for the men's basketball specific pieces of legislation, coaches will now be able to recruit at non-scholastic events held in April starting with the April of 2012.  Along with that, the recruiting calendar for July 2012 will be scaled back from what it has been in the past.  The rules which will allow the earlier access carry an August 1st, 2012 effective date.  After that date PSA's will be allowed to make official visits during their Junior years of high school (in Men's Basketball only).

The Compliance Office will have more information on all of the proposals passed by the Board of Directors as soon as the Head Coaches Meeting this Wednesday.  There is a very good chance that it will also be a main topic of the November Coaches Compliance Workshop, which is Wednesday November 16th at 10:00AM in the SkyDome East Suites.

Huskies Cancel Alumni Shootaround

Washing Dumps Scrimmage After Radio Interview

The University of Washington has canceled  an alumni scrimmage after one of the coaching staff members mentioned the upcoming scrimmage during a radio interview.  The publicity about the event is at the heart of the issue because of the wording in specific Bylaw 14 bylaw.  The shootaround, which would have otherwise been permissible on an "occasional" basis, is now not permissible due to the public announcement.  This specific bylaw differs from the Bylaw 17 rules which allow the closed scrimmages as soon as the start of the permissible playing season in Basketball.  These closed scrimmages, which are against outside competition and not a group of alumni, must be closed to the public, cannot be publicized and no score can be kept.  Exhibition basketball games that are open to the public can also be held as soon as the permissible playing season starts, these are games against non-division one schools and can be publicized and open to the public; in fact, St. John's played one of these games last night in New York.

Publicity also plays a role in several other NCAA bylaws, including many of the bylaws that deal with recruiting and signing NLI's; two other big topics that will be in the news two weeks from today when recruits from several sports will be lighting up fax machines all over the country. 

Just a few examples of how publicity plays into the NCAA manual.  I hope that these situations help to serve as reminders to think before you speak!!

New Housing Information

http://thesuitesnau.com/

http://hilltoptownhomesnau.com/

  Attached are the links to the websites for the new campus dorms.  The website now has information on floor plans and it does list rental rates for the various housing options.  From what is now listed online, it appears that rent will range from $559 per month to $599 per month depending upon the layout.  It also appears that the “Hilltop Dorm” will have a 12 month lease and the “Suites” will have a 10 month lease term.

The contact information for the leasing company is listed online.  There will also be representatives from the leasing company at the three remaining home football games.  The company will have an informational table set up on the West concourse, which is the student seating side of the Dome.

Bobby Knight Meets with Prospective Student-Athlete's

Pat Knight gets Helping Hand from Father

It is being reported that Bobby Knight may have had interaction with two prospective student-athlete's being recruited by Lamar University, where Pat Knight is now the coach.  We have talked a lot about this as it relates to our staff, more specifically when it comes to interaction with boosters, as is mentioned in the article.  You all know that at the beginning of the year, each coaching staff submits a coaching declaration form as required by Bylaw 11.7.4.  Which also limits the number of countable coaches each team can have and how many of those countable coaches can be off-campus recruiting at any one time.  In order to interact with our current student-athlete's in a coaching capacity, a coach must be listed as one of that teams countable coaches.  This interaction would include having any type of skill related or instructional conversations with current student-athlete's  The same thing applies when talking about recruits, in order to recruit a prospect, or enter into a recruiting conversation, a coach must be declared a countable coach; additionally, they must have passed the NCAA recruiting test in order to recruit at off-campus locations.  A recruiting conversation would be any discussion that is designed to elicit a prospects ultimate enrollment at NAU.  This could include discussions of how a recruit would fit into the team or any discussion of offering financial aid or a scholarship to the student.

ASU Basketballer Waiting on Initial Eligiblity Decision

Sun Devil Sitting Out Pending Eligiblity Center Decision

Sun Devil recruit Jahii Carson is currently sitting out pending an initial eligibility decision.  The story mentions that he may have taken a course towards the additional core course that he is allowed after his graduation date.  With the regulations regarding non-traditional courses and initial eligibility that went into effect on August 1st, 2010, there could be a lot of potential issues with the additional course that Jahii took.  It could range from the amount interaction that he had with the course instructor to the time frame that it took him to complete the course.  The article also touches on the fact that he is currently sitting out and not attending team functions, which could likely mean that he has used up his 21 day temporary certification time and is now sitting out because no decision has been made on his case.

If you recall from our Legislative Proposal review in September, there is legislation out there that would potentially require a recruit to have their seven semester transcripts submitted to the EC prior to being allowed to sign an NLI.  This would help the EC to get early academic qualifiers certified in a more timely manner and would also potentially help by requiring that students who attended multiple HS's to get those transcripts tracked down before July and August roll around.  The latter issue is one that has cause a lot of students to exhaust their temporary certification periods in the past. 

There is also talk that CAP and other NCAA level academic panels may soon look to require prospective student-athlete's to have a certain number of core courses completed after two or three years of HS in order to be on track to be a qualifier.  This would put an end to PSA's getting behind in their early years of HS and then loading up on summer courses/ online course or JC courses in their final year to make up ground towards becoming a qualifier.  None of this is in writing or proposal form yet, but it may well be something that we see coming out in the next legislative cycle, so stay tuned.

NCAA will not Penalize Auburn for Newton Recruitiment

NCAA Clears Auburn Football

The Enforcement staff at the NCAA has cleared Auburn of any major violations related to the recruitment of Cam Newton; though they do reserve the right to reopen the investigation if any new information surfaces in the case.  Both Julie Roe Latch and President Emmert had vowed to complete a full investigation into the situation when all of this news broke last fall.  The NCAA has made a point of following through with punishment in the recent "high-profile" cases, though in this case it was stated that this case did not meet the "burden of proof", perhaps suggesting that there was something there, just not enough to file a major violation. 

However, this does not mean that the NCAA is dropping the issue of runners/ agents and over-involved parents.  This years legislative cycle included a proposal that would expand the definition of an agent.  In a few months after the NCAA Convention we may find out if President Emmert's efforts to close the "Cam Newton Loophole" will pay off by cracking down on agents and the shopping around of student-athlete's.

NCAA Chapter 13 Presentation

NCAA Bylaw 13 - Recruiting Materials Presentation

All, attached is an advanced preview of the Recruiting presentation that we will have for all of your tomorrow at the October Compliance Workshop.  We may also present this at the Wednesday October 19th staff meeting at the DuBois Center.

Please let Lee or myself know if you have any topics that you would like covered at tomorrow's workshop.  In additional to this rules ed session, we will have a discussion of the upcoming NLI signing period, which begins Wednesday November 9th.

Tennessee Chattanooga learns from the past

UTC Athletics More Compliant Following Violation

At Tennessee Chattanooga, their Compliance Office discovered and self-reported secondary text messaging and phone call violations.  Upon submitting the violation, the NCAA implemented additional penalties for the secondary violation, including a probationary period.  Regular reports are always part of a probationary period, and it no surprise that following the violation, the issue was addressed and went away moving forward.  What is interesting about this article is that the NCAA asked the institution to go back and look for similar phone call or texting violations over the past two years.  It is an interesting thought, especially for a secondary violation, which could then lead to something more severe, especially since the Compliance Office will be looking into an area where there was just a violation.  That may be something that could be implemented as a best practices for all of us who go through secondary violations, it would certainly help to identify the scope of the problem going back beyond the what most recently happened or was self-reported.

Cincinnati Reports Phone Log Violations

Cincinnati Reports Recruiting Violations to NCAA

The University of Cincinnati has self-reported excessive phone calls to the NCAA.  The excessive phone calls occurred over the period of approximately a year and were limited to the Football and Women's Basketball staff.  The violations were reported through a process called the Summary Disposition process, where the school works cooperatively with the NCAA Enforcement staff to agree upon the facts of the case.  This process is beneficial because it keeps the violations private and out of the news until the process is resolved; the downside of the summary disposition process is that the institution loses the opportunity to appeal the sanctions.  However, it is typically a moot point for schools choosing this method because they are working so closely with the Enforcement Staff.

Trouble Continues to Follow Kiffin from Knoxville

Former UT Coach Paid for Unofficial Visit

A coach on Lane Kiffin's USC staff, who recently resigned, is now rumored to have provided  expenses for a PSA to make an unoffiical visit to UT.  There is a big difference between NCAA Bylaws 13.6 (Official Visits) and 13.7 (Unofficial Visits) and at the heart of those differences is who is paying for the visit. 

Students coming to campus on unofficial visits can drop in at any time, since there are (at least currently) no age restrictions on when a PSA can take an unofficial visit.  On the unofficial visits, our coaches cannot have off-campus contact with a PSA and we cannot purchase meals for them.  All of that changes when a student is on an Official visit; where the institution can provide transportation, lodging and meal expenses for a student.  However, with those privileges, we must limit all of our official visits to no longer than 48 hours. 

Just some brief reminders on the do's and don'ts of hosting recruits on campus.  One final reminder that all officials visits need at least seven days pre-approval, while all unofficial visits need to be logged and tracked for your records.

CAA Proposes Fifth Year of Eligibility

CAA Backs Fifth Year Plan for FCS Football

The CAA appears to be proposing a legislative proposal for this fall that would allow FCS Football student-athlete's to play in a five for five scenario.  It is an interesting proposal, said to combat the fewer number of scholarship athlete's on an FCS team, and the often difficult decision coaches may face when redshirting a student versus saving the year and playing a walk-on.  There appears to be built in provisions for FBS students looking to transfer down for a fifth year; it appears that a student would need to spend at least two years at the FCS school to qualify, at least as the proposal is said to be written. Given that FCS and FBS votes are now separate, it could play out differently that it would have in the past.  Currently, there are sport specific rules for financial aid, recruiting and academic eligibility, but it is hard to imagine a sport specific rule for athletic eligibility.  NCAA eligibility at all levels has been built on the four years of eligibility model and this would mark a radical change from that point of view.  Maybe we will learn more about this as we head towards the fall legislative cycle.

Coaching Exam Dates

We have now set dates and times for the annual NCAA coaching exam.  I will post a sign-up sheet in the Compliance Office, just to help gauge how many people will be showing up at each date.  I would really like to stick with these three dates, but if it is absolutely necessary to add more dates we can do so.

Wednesday June 8^th     1:00 – 2:00PM

Wednesday June 22^nd   8:00 – 9:00AM

Wednesday July 13^th     8:00 – 9:00AM

All exams will be in the computer lab at the South LAC building.

This year’s test is 30 questions, with 24 of 30 being the lowest passing score.  The time limit has also been adjusted to 60 minutes maximum.

The Compliance Office will bring copies of the new legislation and the NCAA manual for you to use.  Please try to be on-time to the session you are attending, we will go over instructions and log-in information at the start of the session.

Boise State Program Halts International Recruitment

Boise State Imposes Two-Year Ban for Track Program

International students are a big part of many NCAA programs, however, recruiting internationals can be more complicated that recruiting domestic students.  International students need Visa's, I-20's, financial guarantees, TOEFL scores and that is just on the admissions side of things.  The leagues and the competitions oversees often push the limits of what is considered 'amateur' competition, and that, combined with many internationals students delaying their enrollment cause the international students to often run into NCAA amateurism issues as well.  It seems to be an interesting self-imposed penalty on Boise State's part, but certainly does not have to be an overly detrimental  penalty for the track program.

The Cost of an NCAA Major Violation

Boise State Puts 200K Into Investigation

 It recently came out that Boise State has spent over $200,000 on outside council to defend themselves against the 22 allegations their program faces.  The school has sought the services of two separate law firms that specialize in NCAA compliance cases since they were first informed of the allegations nearly two years ago.  The law firms, combined with the efforts of in-house legal council and compliance staff, drafted a 1,500 page response to the NCAA allegations. Despite the money and the man hours that have gone into BSU's defense, the school has still self-imposed penalties as a proactive response to the allegations.  It remains a possibility that the school can still face additional penalties after appearing before the NCAA Committee on Infractions later this summer.  All in all, it goes to show that you can invest a great deal of time and money into an infractions defense and still not get off the hook without any penalties; which goes to show that following the rules from the start is the way to be.

Incoming Student: Housing Information

Yesterday was the deadline for incoming students who had already filed housing applications to pay their $175 housing rent confirmation fee.  If your team had an incoming student who still needed to pay the charge, we worked with you throughout the later part of last week to get you that information.  We are happy to report that everyone paid the charge and no one was dropped from housing.

From this point forward, once a student files their housing application, they will have seven days from the date the rent charges are posted to pay the $175.  If the student fails to pay the charges within that period of time, their housing application will be cancelled. If you are still adding incoming students to your list, please work with them and pass this information along.  On campus housing space will be valuable again this upcoming year and we would hate for someone to miss their deadline and get dropped from housing.

Here is some additional information regarding housing:
Residence Life: Incoming Student FAQ

NAU Spring Finals Week Information

NAU Dining Hours

All, please take a look the attached dining schedule for this week.  The last meal covered under the on-campus meal plans will be Dinner on Friday May 13th.

All on-campus students must be moved out of their dorm space by Friday May 13th at 10:00AM.  Please be sure to inform your on-campus students of these important deadlines.

If you have student-athlete's who took part in the Textbook Rental Program, rental textbooks are due back to the bookstore by the end of the day Tuesday May 17th.  If the books are not returned by then, the credit card they put down as a deposit will be charged for the balance of the book.

We hope all of your finals week activities go well.  Good luck to our graduating Seniors and we wish everyone a good summer!!!