College Recruiters at combines?

NCAA bylaw 13.1.8.9.4 says institutional staff members shall not attend any scholastic or non-scholastic activities devoted to agility, flexibility, speed or strength tests for prospective student athletes conducted at any location at any time.

Bo Kerin of NCAA Membership Services says the rule is designed, in theory, to get college coaches away from making evaluations only at combines. They hope coaches will get back to football-only evaluations. The rule has caused numerous events like the NIKE Training Camps to change how they'll operate. However, many college coaches also didn't realize the rule means they'll have to change the way they operate their own summer camps.

As long as this rule is in place, gone are the days when prospects attend college summer camps and go through a myriad of tests in the 40-yard dash, vertical leap, shuttle, bench press and other agility drills. What once was a staple of almost everybody's camps are now a thing of past.

"You mean we have no way of testing these kids when they're on our campus to see how they stack up athletically?" one concerned coach asked out loud when the seminar turned to this topic.

His question was greeted by a series of nodding heads and raised voices in agreement. Tennessee assistant coach Dan Brooks was especially vocal about his disagreement with the new rule.

"You've just opened up a very bad can of worms," Brooks said. "That was not what this rule was intended for at all. We have all these players on our campus and we can't even put a clock on them to see how fast they are. We're going to be punished by this, and it's not even what they meant to happen."

Kerin and Geoff Silver, another member of the NCAA Membership Services, said at this point there's no wiggle room in the rule.

"It is what it is," Kerin said. "Coaches are not allowed at any event with testing, period."

The other hot topic – just as it was last year – concerned text messaging.

The NCAA is looking at three different options, one of which was just shot down at the NCAA convention. The three options are NCAA Proposal No. 2006-40, Proposal No. 2006-41 and the status quo.

Proposal No. 2006-40 - which was proposed by The Ivy Group - would eliminate text messaging to prospects and specifies that electronically transmitted correspondence sent to a prospective student-athlete is limited to electronic mail and facsimiles.
Proposal No. 2006-41 was considered to be a middle-of-the-road solution, and it would have reduced communication via text messaging from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The times would be based upon the location where the prospect resides. However, the NCAA Management Council earlier this week defeated this proposal.

That leaves either the status quo – where there are no rules at all – or Proposal No. 2006-40 on the table for consideration. Kerin said the Management Council could be leaning toward elimination. So at this point, Proposal No. 2006-40 could eventually pass and then be in place on Aug. 1. If it doesn't pass, nothing will happen and everything will remain as is.

"One of the biggest reasons 41 was defeated was because they thought it would be impossible for compliance people to deal with," Kerin told the seminar. "The biggest thing that made it tough was that you couldn't monitor it. You can't legislate integrity."

This was asked in the seminar that I was at and it is not allowed either. In the seminar at the convention they asked a bunch of what if's and they were all no. I missed the very beginning when they were talking about periods so I was unsure if this applied to all of the recruiting periods, which it looks like it does.