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Ivy League Proposal for NCAA Would Ban Text, Instant Messages

Posted on: Wednesday, 30 August 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Steve Wieberg

An NCAA panel is calling for limits on text messages in recruiting, but at least one conference concerned about their proliferation wants to go further.

Ivy League officials have drawn up a proposed NCAA rules change that, within a year, would prohibit recruiters from using text and instant messages altogether.

The NCAA's legislative boards will begin reviewing the two measures in October, picking up an issue that has gained more attention amid complaints of intrusion into high school players' lives and even pocketbooks (with possible fees). "Coaches feel compelled to contact prospects constantly, prospects are distracted at all hours of the day and night, and prospects and their parents are bearing the significant costs involved with receiving text messages," the Ivy argues in the proposal. Its proposal would limit electronically transmitted correspondence to recruits to e-mail and faxes, effective next August.

The competing proposal from the NCAA's Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet would preserve text messages and other electronic communications but restrict them, most pointedly banning them during school hours. Coaches could send such messages from 4-8p.m. Monday through Friday and 8a.m.-8p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

They couldn't start such "computer-mediated communication" until June15 after a basketball prospect's sophomore year in high school. In other sports, they couldn't start until Sept.1 of a prospect's junior year.

The limits wouldn't apply to e-mails.

NCAA rules treat text messages similarly to letters, imposing no restrictions, and many coaches use them profusely to make contact with prospects. Others feel compelled to follow suit.

"Recruited athletes get pounded so much in so many ways, anything we can do to lighten the load on them, I think, is positive," says Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham, who favors a text-message ban.

Indiana's Terry Hoeppner, on the other hand, notes that the technology is "part of our culture right now. So many of the guys we're recruiting are text-message aware, and I think it's here to stay. I don't think eliminating it is necessary, but I think regulating it is."

Final NCAA votes on the issue could come in April.

(c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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