NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

NCSA Recruiting 360 Director Randy Taylor was featured by Taylor Bell on his Chicago Sun Times blog discussing NCAA contact periods.

Randy Taylor made an impact in college recruiting for 30 years, as a recruiter and recruiting coordinator at UCLA, Illinois, Minnesota and Nevada-Las Vegas. As the chief organizer of UCLA’s recruiting in 1999, he helped to sign the No. 1 class in the nation.

Now Taylor is the recruiting coordinator for Chicago-based National Collegiate Scouting Association. Since he walked away from college football, he has formed some riveting opinions about the recruiting process that should be of interest to the media, high school and college coaches, athletes and their parents and anyone interested in the game.

“The more I see how the early commitment is being used and abused,” he said, “I would definitely want to establish an early signing day for football. It should be either at the end of June so prospects can go to camps and commit afterward and follow the spring evaluation period so college coaches can check out academics.

Taylor also said there should be a contact period added to the spring. July will still be a much-needed slow month for college coaches. But if a young man has made up his mind, why not allow him to end the recruiting process? It would be a money-saver for the colleges, prevent other schools from badgering the athlete and allow the prospect to enjoy the summer and concentrate on his senior year.

“Another option is the first week of November as players could take official visits during September and October, then sign,” he said. “This is my second choice, however, because it still means the prospect gets harassed by coaches and Internet sites during the fall.

Leaping into a subject not often discussed, Taylor said the editors and writers of Internet team sites are abusing rules at the request of college coaches and recruiting coordinators. The liaison to the unofficial team website is asking the site editor to call prospects to dig for information and help to recruit players.

“For example, a prospect takes an unofficial visit to an opposing school. The coach has the Internet writer call the recruit to see how it went. The same goes for an official visit to the coach’s campus,” Taylor said.

“Or a kid commits so the other school has the site call to see if there’s still hope that he will change his mind. During non-calling periods, the coach has the site call and get information and pass it along. Site representatives will negatively recruit other schools. The Internet sites are great at finding out secrets like home visits and offers.

“The sites also will publish misinformation for schools. Recruiting coordinators and coaches call the sites as soon as a kid commits so it gets on the Internet as soon as possible. Schools give the sites phone numbers of prospects so they can call them. Everything a prospect tells an Internet site is passed on to the coaches.

“A prospect is attending a game or practice or making an unofficial visit so the coach or recruiting coordinator calls the site so they can come in and interviews the player and take photographs. If a college coach thinks he can keep a secret about recruiting, he is mistaken. The prospects and Internet sites talk to each other too much.

“Finally, the rule restricting an unofficial visit from being in conjunction with a camp is a terrible rule. It just causes the family to pay for a hotel if they are from out-of-town or go home the day of the camp and come back the next day. It also is a rule that is broken all the time. Prospects are offered regularly during camps without any consideration of this rule.”

The Following was sent to NCSA by the legal team representing Oliver vs the NCAA.  His comments regarding the NCAA are extremely interesting.

Media–

Other Recent NCAA Lawsuits: In today’s Indianapolis Star, Mark Alesia discusses our lawsuit as well as two (2) of the three (3) other recent lawsuits against the NCAA that relate to the NCAA’s profits earned on the backs of its members’ student-athletes without any compensation. These recent lawsuits have also been covered by the New York Times’ William C. Rhoden on July 22nd, Pete Thamel on July 21st, and Katie Thomas on July 3rd; there is a condensed discussion of all three (3) recent ones on the July 23rd Wall Street Journal Law Blog. I wish to make two (2) comments regarding all of this:

First, the idea that the Oliver lawsuit is about “amateurism” is a red-herring, because it is not–it’s about the right of counsel, which the NCAA attempted to prohibit in order to protect its free labor market vis-à-vis the professional leagues very expensive labor markets, in my opinion. As the judge noted in our case, there is simply no connection between the NCAA’s purported goal of “amateurism” and allowing student-athletes to be represented by counsel in negotiations that the NCAA allows them to engage in. What the NCAA is afraid of, in my opinion, is that the best student-athletes will go pro at a younger age, with the advice of expert legal counsel, which will diminish the NCAA’s “product,” which is the broadcast rights to student-athlete competitions. This is not “amateurism” but “commercialism,” as admitted by Myles Brand in the April 1st edition of USA Today, and the NCAA is using it’s idyllic notion of “amateurism,” which no longer exists today, to illegally compete against the professional sports leagues for broadcast revenues, in my opinion. It’s that simple. Moreover, the number of superstar young athletes, who can go pro at a very young age is so small that the impact would be minor in any case (look how few basketball players are skipping college and going to Europe to escape the first-year draft ban).

Second, this new wave of lawsuits, some of which cite to ours, assume that the NCAA’s Student-Athlete Statement is a contract that the NCAA uses to gain ownership of the student-athletes’ copyrights and rights of publicity, when Myles Brand is on record as stating that the NCAA does not own their rights of publicity, and when the NCAA has taken the position in our case that it has NO contractual relationship whatsoever with its members’ student-athletes. As such, it is simply legally impossibly for the NCAA to own any rights related to any aspects of student-athletes’ competitions, likenesses, names, etc. Not included in these lawsuits, but representing the billion dollar question is what legal right the NCAA or its members, including the various conferences and schools, have to sell broadcast rights to student-athlete competitions, which are “performances” governed by the federal Copyright Act? Legally, the answer is, “None.” Morally, the answer is, “None.” (See the National College Players’ Association web page, www.ncpanow.org, for a description of all of the reasons why the grant-in-aid is hardly fair compensense for playing collegiate sports let alone for acquiring the players’ economic rights; see also Kristina Peterson’s story in the NYT on July 24th regarding collegiate health care for student-athletes or the lack thereof and consequences visited on injured student-athletes).

Thanks,

–RGJ

Encls.

Richard G. Johnson, Esquire
Richard G. Johnson Co., L.P.A.

Q: Why is there no information about recruiting involving junior college players?

A: You asked for it, you got it. The first thing we’ll cover is transfer rules. This is taken from the Athletes Wanted website.

You are a transfer if…
   • You were ever enrolled full-time in a two or four year school.
   • You ever went to practice
   • You practiced or played while you were enrolled part-time

What Type of Transfer Are You?
   • Qualifier: A student-athlete who has met NCAA Eligibility requirements.
   • Partial Qualifier: A freshman who has met some of the academic requirements, but not all. They
      o Can practice
      o Can receive financial aid
      o Must sit out one year
      o DII Only, DI does NOT have partial qualifiers
   • Non-Qualifier: An S/A who has not met academic requirements.
      o Can’t practice or play
      o No financial aid for one year.
      o Three seasons of competition in Division I
      o Automatic non-qualifier if you never registered for the clearinghouse.

When do you need permission to contact?
      • If you’re now full-time in a four-year school
      • A written letter from your AD (or admin/compliance).
      • You may write to any NCAA college saying that you’re interested in transferring, but the new coach must not discuss transferring with you unless they have received written permission from your current school.
      • If your current school will not give you a written permission to contact, you will have to sit out a year or appeal.

When DON’T you need permission? 
   • You are attending a NJCAA, NCCAA school. 
   • DIII to DIII school. In which case you use a “Self Release” to allow the second school to contact you about transferring.
      o Sample self-release at ncaa.org 

Junior College Transfer
   • If you are a two-year college transfer, you do not need a release.
   • You may be required to get your degree in some cases or else you will have to sit out a year (academic year in residence).

I want to transfer
   • Refer to the NCAA transfer guide and the FAQ on the NCAA site. Immediately call the NCAA (317-917-6222) to determine your eligibility status and familiarize yourself with the NCAA rules.
   • Determine if you are eligible
      o Did you fulfill NLI requirements?
      o Are you academically in good standing?
      o Are you a qualifier, partial qualifier, non-qualifier?
   • Determine what release forms you need to get.
      o Do you have written permission to contact?
      o Coaches are required to have a transfer release in hand BEFORE speaking to a student-athlete from a four year college (scholarship or not).
      o If you do not have a release the interested coach needs to inform their Compliance Officer and one will be sent to the your current institution requesting permission to contact.

Here’s an inspirational story from ESPN Rise about an athlete overcoming extreme adversity to become a college athlete.

The first Wednesday of February is Christmas on the football recruiting calendar. The gift is a college football scholarship, the occasion routinely shared with parents. It caps a senior season that will be remembered for a lifetime.

Little was routine when Brandon Bates — a 6-foot-3, 235-pound defensive end — walked into the library at A.C. Flora (Columbia, S.C.) to sign last February.

No senior season. No parents, at least none whom he remembers.

The Flora coaching staff was instrumental in Bates landing a scholarship to NCAA Division II Elizabeth City State, a historically black college in North Carolina. After he signed Feb. 4 with the other Flora signees in the school library, Bates surprised Falcons head coach Robin Bacon and other staffers by hugging them and saying he loved them.

“As a coach, you try to keep a dry eye,” said Freddie Solomon, Flora’s receivers coach and recruiting coordinator.

Bates, who has already enrolled at Elizabeth City State, said it’s difficult to describe what getting the scholarship means to him.

“It’s a blessing,” he said.

Bates said he has two brothers and two sisters in South Carolina and Georgia whom he talks to occasionally. But he never really knew his parents and said he first went into foster care around age 9.

Bates has lived the past four years at Carolina Children’s Home in Columbia and attended Flora while there. The nonprofit home can house up to 92 residents ages 6 to 21. He lived in a dorm with a roommate, rode the CCH van to and from school. Meals at CCH are served in the dining hall, ending with dinner at 5 p.m. On days when he couldn’t make it back in time because of practice, he said special arrangements were made to get him home and provide a later meal.

Bates said he never played football until he enrolled at Flora. The coaching staff saw the big new kid and invited him to watch practice to see if he’d like to give it a try.

“It came quick, kind of natural,” Bates said. “I was kind of a headhunter, just started going after the ball. Then I started learning techniques.”

Bacon immediately recognized a combination of strength, speed and most of all, drive.

“The biggest thing is his passion for the game,” said Bacon, who recently resigned as Flora coach after 10 seasons to become athletic director at nearby Lower Richland (Hopkins, S.C.). “He’s an emotional kid who has a reason for playing sports. It’s a place where he could go. His sanctuary. Where he belonged.”

Last summer, Bacon and his staff were especially diligent in making sure Bates would attend offseason camps and be seen by college coaches. Solomon projected him as a major college linebacker.

About that time, a check of Bates’ academic records revealed he’d attended another high school before enrolling at Flora. He didn’t play any sports at Calhoun County (Saint Matthews, S.C.), but his athletic eligibility had expired.
Bates was devastated and assumed his chance to play college football was over. Bacon sat him down along with Solomon and defensive coordinator Brian Thompson, and they told him that they’d keep trying to land him a scholarship.

“He broke down. I broke down,” Solomon said. “I told him, ‘Don’t give up. Just trust me.’”

Bates couldn’t participate in any portion of the football program. Coaches and players encouraged him to attend games, but he found that difficult. At times, he said, he considered dropping out of school.

“I felt like there wasn’t any point,” Bates said. “I used to get mad. I used to feel bad on Fridays when they went to go play and I couldn’t go.”

In early December, Elizabeth City State coach Waverly Tillar visited Flora to see if any senior Falcons might fit his program. Bacon was off campus, helping coach at the annual North-South All-Star Football Game in Myrtle Beach, S.C., so Tillar met with Solomon.

“The first thing that came to my mind — Brandon Bates,” Solomon said. “We talked for an hour.”

Solomon explained Bates’ unusual situation and showed Tillar some film of Bates’ junior season.

Tillar was sold. Bates was called out of his Spanish class and told to see Solomon in the school atrium. Tillar told Bates that he would be mailing him the necessary paperwork for a football scholarship as soon as he returned to campus.

This just goes to show how important a good relationship with your coaches can be. While they can’t do it all for you, they may be able to go above and beyond their own job description in order to help someone that they feel is deserving.

Scout.com detailed the story of how NCSA athlete Kevin Henry from Morris Community (Il.)  made his college decision.

Kevin Henry made Mount Pleasant a little more pleasant for Central Michigan today.

“When I told Coach Jones, you could hear the entire room of coaches,” the Morris Community defensive end said.

Henry committed to the Chippewas over offers from Toledo, Indiana and Northern Illinois. The 6’5, 252-lb prospect says it was nothing against those schools, just a great feeling about CMU.

“It just came down to where I felt comfortable. I had some offers from a lot of great programs, but I felt like CMU was the best fit for me. I did my hours of research and seemed like the right choice.”

Part of his choice was the chance to play early.

“Well, they graduate three of their defensive ends this year, so there’s always openings. There are some redshirt guys and underclassmen, so it depends, but there’s a chance of early playing time.”

The commitment comes early enough to relieve Henry of the rigors that come along with the recruiting process.

“It feels great,” he said, “It is a lot of relief off my shoulders and a lot of pressure is gone.”

And of course, he couldn’t have gotten to this point without some help.

“My family,” he responded, when asked who helped him the most, “I sat down with them and talked about it. They have been very supportive. NCSA, I went through them. Rick McDole, he answered every question I had. It was them, my family and friends.”

Congratulations to Kevin for finding his perfect fit school, we wish him the best of luck. He is a great example of how having a recruiting plan can help ease the recruiting process and maximize your chances for success.

Q:  Could you please address what technically is a “verbal agreement.”  Since early signing isn’t until Nov. for Div 1 softball, when someone has verbally agreed to a school does the player or school have to honor it?  Or can either get out of the deal if they come across a better situation prior to signing the letter of intent?

A:  The oral or verbal agreement is not binding in anyway. When a coach offers an athlete a scholarship or a spot on the roster, depending on the situation or sport, it means that if the athlete commits that spot is taken (in word only). If the athlete doesn’t commit, the offer is there until someone else commits to fill that spot. Remember, each sport has only a limited number of spots available in a year.
 
A verbal offer is made by the sport’s coaching staff and not by the school or athletic department. Usually, there is an agreement between the athletic director and the coaching staff that they are only offering student athletes that meet the department’s, school’s and NCAA’s requirements.
 
Because the offer is not binding, either the athlete or the university can back out of the commitment at any time. Many athletes do.
 
When I was at UCLA we’d lose one or two committed players a year at most but we could usually see it coming.
 
The offer and subsequent commitment is much more sacred to the school’s coaching staff for a couple reasons:

1) The PR of withdrawing a spot from a committed player is tough to overcome especially with the athlete’s high school. It may take a college coach a long time to heal that wound.
2) Other college coaches will use it against you forever or as long as it is effective, saying that a player can’t trust your word which is huge in recruiting. With the internet involvement, the word will spread far and wide.
 
We had a steadfast policy at UCLA that when we offered a scholarship, nothing short of legal problems, a major violation of high school rules or academic failures would we rescind a committed player’s scholarship. Even if the athlete was injured playing his sport, we would honor the commitment.
 
The “verbal agreement” is only as good as the word of the people involved!!

Q:  How are athletes offered scholarships in their sophomore and junior years of high school, well before coaches are even supposed to be contacting potential recruits?

A:  Long story short, coaches will find a way.

There are several ways this can happen. See below:

1) A college coach will call the high school coach and ask him to have the prospect call them.
2) If the athlete attends a camp at the college’s campus the staff may decide to offer the young man there. However there are rules regarding this that get broken regularly in this case.
3) When the prospect takes an unofficial visit to the university the coaching staff will set up a meeting with the head coach to make the offer.
4) If the prospect is a junior the college coach will send an email or letter asking the prospect to call the office.
5) When the college coach is visiting the high school watching practice or a game he can ask the high school coach to pass on to the prospect that he has a scholarship and to call to talk to the head coach.
6) There are times when a college coach will ask an internet website guy to pass on a message to the prospect.
7) There are situations where the college coach had his son or daughter who attend the same school get the prospect to call the coach’s home, cell or office.
8) Think of anyway a college coach can get word to a prospect without writing or calling the athlete until it’s considered legal.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

Will you be on this year’s list

Q:  When it is appropriate for me to join or register with the NCAA Clearing house / Eligibility Center?

A:  The NCAA Eligibility Center, which used to be referred to as the Clearinghouse, determines if a student-athlete is eligible to compete as a freshman at the DI, DI-AA and DII level, by the core courses you take in high school, your core GPA and your test scores (ACT, SAT). A prospective student-athlete is someone who is looking to participate in intercollegiate athletics at an NCAA Division I or Division II institution in the future.

It is also important to have registered before you take your first official visit–which you can’t take until opening day of classes your senior year of high school. We recommend that your registration with the NCAA Eligibility Center be completed the summer after Junior year. If you complete it before that time, your high school guidance counselor may wait to send your information until completion of your Junior year. You may complete the application by visiting here and follow the directions. There is a $60 fee to process.

Your clearance is not actually complete until all required high school courses are taken. The high school will need to send transcripts into the Eligibility Center. By registering you are completing the student release form and sending it to the Eligibility Center. You also print off the, transcript release form, (sign it) and give copies 1 & 2 directly to your high school counselor. This will authorize the Eligibility Center to request a transcript from the school. It also authorizes the Eligibility Center to send academic information to all colleges that request eligibility status. If no college requests status, the information will not be distributed.

Official test scores must be sent from the testing agency. Test scores that appear on a high school transcript will not be accepted. Please use code “9999″ when requesting test scores from ACT or SAT. This authorizes your scores to be sent directly to the Eligibility Center. It is required that these test scores come directly from the testing agency. A high school may NOT send test score to the Eligibility Center.

Those graduating in or after 2008 that plan to attend an NCAA Division I institution must have 16 core courses. Not all classes you take in high school meet core course requirements! Check your high schools list of approved core courses at the NCAA Eligibility website or ask your high school counselor. You also must meet a sliding scale minimum for GPA & SAT/ACT. This is outlined in the, Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete, handbook found on the NCAA website, as well as, your Recruiting Toolbox under NCAA Info. Please remember that meeting the NCAA academic rules does not guarantee your admission into a college. You must still apply and be accepted to the institution you want to attend.

You will also need to request final amateur certification by signing the 10.1 statement. Remember to log back in to your account and finalize your amateurism questionnaire before you enroll in college. If you are beginning school in the fall semester (August), you will need to complete the amateurism questionnaire and sign the final authorization signature on or after April 1 prior to enrollment. If you are beginning school in the spring semester (January), you will need to complete the amateurism questionnaire and sign the final authorization signature on or after October 1 of the year prior to enrollment.

The College Board has information about the SAT on its Web site and ACT has information here.

Q: My son is a football player class of 2011. He recently attended a football camp where he was verbally offered a scholarship by a D1 university. I was not there, but his high school coach was. That was about a month ago and I have not heard anything from that University. I know that he cannot receive a written offer until 9/1. I have called the University and not been able to talk to a coach. I have left a message with the Head coach’s secretary. I have e-mailed the recruiting coordinator. No one has returned my calls. What does that mean?

A: It’s important to have a strong understanding of the contact rules for each sport as you work you’re way through the process. As a 2011 football student athlete college coaches can not reach out to you in any personal way, so it’s going to be very difficult for them to follow up your voicemails and emails to confirm the offer. The good news though is that they can communicate with you if you reach out to them and initiate the contact, so be persistent in following up with them. With that said, it’s important that you don’t go over board. With preseason camp starting soon, college coaches are extremely busy and realistically you may not have an opportunity to talk with them before the fall to confirm their offer. What you do between now and then may have a result on whether or not there is still an opportunity with this program. You don’t want to call 100 times between now and Sept. 1, that may rub the coaches the wrong way and they could go in another direction. After Sept. 1 the contact rules will open up a bit and they can show more interest. They will also be back in the office and fully committed to recruiting. It’s important to remember that if these coaches were impressed enough to make an offer in camp, odds they are still going to be interested in the fall and they will follow up to attempt to recruit your son into the program.