NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Recently we asked if recruits should be allowed to follow a coach to a new school despite signing a National Letter of Intent with the coach’s old school.  It is a valid question, but it was traditionally a useless question because unless a school released the recruit from his signed letter he was contractually bound to attend the university for at least one year.

Now a new loophole has emerged that is becoming more and more common among top-recruits.  There is no hard evidence, but it appears that top recruits are now routinely receiving addendum letters that allow the recruit an escape clause if the coach they signed with leaves for another school.

“It’s just early permission granted so that the student athlete doesn’t have to tussle with the school, doesn’t have to wait for a new coach and doesn’t have to wait for new recruiting opportunities,” said Paul Biancardi, ESPN/Scouts Inc. national director of recruiting and an ex-college coach. “It’s a feeling of security.”

But, doesn’t this destroy the entire purpose of the NLI?  Does a top recruit deserve to receive an addendum letter while a lesser recruit is bound to his NLI?  Should new provisions like the firing of an assistant coach be included in every NLI? Is the entire program useful anymore?  What do you think?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Athletic Scholarships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.