Comment
January 6, 1997
Student-athlete view -- A ringing endorsement of phone restrictions
BY JAMILA WIDEMAN
Stanford University
After my recruiting experience more than three years ago, I have not looked at a telephone the same way.
Currently, I am a senior at Stanford University and a member of the women's basketball team. In fact, Stanford was the very last school to contact me. It was not until late summer before my senior year that Stanford showed its interest, so I received more than my share of phone calls from various schools.
The rules have changed since that time, and phone calls now are prohibited until after the student-athlete's junior year of high school is completed.
The main criterion that should be used to establish rules for recruiting should be whether or not they allow the student-athlete the best opportunity to make an informed decision. The rules also should protect the student-athlete from overly intrusive contact.
Because of my recruiting experience, it took me nearly my entire freshman year to reach the point where I would actually answer the phone. As those weeks of spring and summer passed before my senior year of high school and the looming dates of the early signing period, my phone was ringing off the hook with recruiters waiting on the other end.
I pleaded with my parents to answer the phone for me in case I wanted to make myself unavailable. These calls were not only a disruption to me, but also my family. The new rules that limit the number of calls per week and prevent phone contact until the senior year help manage the situation.
Establishing NCAA guidelines that limit calls also takes pressure off of the student-athlete. As a high-school student, it was very flattering to receive so many calls from collegiate coaches, but it also was intimidating. I was hesitant to ask coaches to limit their calls for fear that they would think I was uninterested.
Student-athletes can begin receiving mail before phone calls. These letters and other materials provide important information about academic and athletics programs. The
phone calls that come later should serve as an opportunity to clarify what the student-athlete already has had access to.
Additionally, student-athletes also are allowed to contact schools and request information on their own. Judging from my experience with Stanford, I had ample time and opportunity to make an informed decision, even though I did not have any phone contact until the summer before my senior year of high school.
The pressure and intimidating forces that accompany the process can be overwhelming. If more contacts were allowed, both coaches and student-athletes would be caught in a popularity contest. If one school calls three times a week and another two, is this a sign that the school that calls more often is better? These are not the standards student-athletes should use to make such an important decision.
The current system of limited contact helps to decrease this pressure. However, I also believe that all student-athletes should have access to people outside of the institutions that are recruiting them who can help with the process. I was lucky enough to have a great support network around me to help with the pressures of recruiting, but not all student-athletes have this network.
Some schools have guidance counselors, but many are not equipped to help student-athletes with the unique pressures they face. The NCAA is in a powerful position to help this situation, perhaps by working with high-school organizations to provide for mentors or counselors who could intervene on behalf of student-athletes who otherwise do not have adequate support networks.
Ultimately, I believe that protecting the interests of the student-athlete must be the first priority when discussing recruiting guidelines. If, after a year, the student is unhappy with his or her decision, that individual may transfer -- but only if he or she is willing, at the very least, to sit out a year of athletics competition. It becomes clear then why the initial decision to attend a school is so critical and pressure-filled. In the end, it is the student-athlete and not the institution who pays the greatest penalty for a mistake.
Jamila Wideman is a member of the women's basketball team at Stanford University.
Letter to the Editor -- Concern about change to 25-meter pool
Having the 2000 NCAA Division I swimming and diving championships in a 25-meter pool as opposed to the traditional 25-yard facility is about the dumbest idea I've heard of since the inception of Title IX, football scholarship limitations and baggy shorts for basketball players.
If the idea is to simulate conditions under which our collegians (only a very tiny fraction of whom make the team) will participate at the Sydney Olympics, why not hold it in the same size pool they'll swim in there -- 50 meters?
Nobody swims 25 meters during the season (all dual meets are held in 25-yard pools), so why go 25 meters for the NCAAs?
Recognition? Possibility of world records? They're all available in a 50-meter facility too, and how are you going to explain to the media that knows from nothing about swimming that Joe Blow from YXY school set a world record in the 50-meter free but it's really not a world record as this is not the same size pool he'll swim in at the Olympics. Besides, if it's world records you want, just say that anybody who sets an American record at the NCAAs also establishes a world standard inasmuch as America is the only country in the world that swims meets in 25-yard facilities.
Who's going to dispute that?
The NCAA championship has been held in 25-yard pools since the beginning and nobody's had a problem with this arrangement in the past. Why change now? You don't see them enlarging the football field to 110 yards because that's how big a soccer patch is!
If the brain surgeons at United States Swimming, particularly national technical director Dennis Pursley, are so concerned about the welfare and enhanced recognition/visibility of the NCAA Division I championships, then let them hold the Olympic trials at a time when they don't conflict with the former -- not three weeks before, which takes away the focus of the NCAA meet and forces top swimmers to taper and shave twice in a month's span, hardly optimum conditions for peak performance.
U.S. Swimming argues that a trial 16 weeks out gives the best results. Right. Well, we stunk up the pool at Barcelona and we stunk up the pool at Atlanta and -- coincidence -- both years the trials were held in early March, before the NCAAs! All holding the trials in March accomplishes is to allow the top swimmers to prostitute themselves to commercial sponsors for the next four months -- and then fall flat on their faces at the Olympics.
If you want to liven up the NCAA championships and make it again what it once was -- that is, the most exciting swimming and diving meet in the world -- go back to six finalists per event, allow double lane lines and make the time standards more realistic so 90 percent of the athletes don't have to cheat to make the cut. Then you'd have a meet worth watching.
Bill Bell
Los Angeles
Opinions -- NCAA amateurism regulations continue to fuel debate
Sonny Vacarro, Adidas director of basketball
New York Daily News
"The rules are pointless. There's a tremendous amount of concern across the country because the rules are so ambiguous .... As one who's been in the middle of all this for years, I think that if the NCAA truly wants amateurism, everything that goes under a corporate banner or sponsorship should be excluded from a relationship with a student."
Jamie McCloskey, associate director of athletics
University of Florida
New York Daily News
"If you look at the NCAA amateurism rules, which were first written in 1906, it's difficult to apply them in 1996. Maybe the term 'amateur' can't be applied anymore. Technically, we may not have one amateur in the NCAA."
Bob Minnix, associate director of athletics
Florida State University
New York Daily News
"In the past, the NCAA had an easier job. You just looked at the booster who was giving money to athletes to go to the school he supported. Now these third parties are giving money to needy kids and end up getting involved in the recruiting process."
Pay-for-play
Bryan Jurewicz, football player
University of Wisconsin, Madison
ESPNET Sportszone
"I believe that players should be paid .... The reason that an athlete receives a scholarship is for reimbursement for their time given to their university. Well, it was calculated here at Wisconsin that an athlete on scholarship earns $1.35 an hour for the 20 hours a week of mandatory workouts. The last time I checked, the minimum wage was more than $1.35 an hour. And that doesn't even count the amount of volunteer time athletes put into lifting and other activities that are necessary to be at a competitive physical level."
Steve Miller, Nike director of college marketing
The Associated Press
"The NCAA needs to fundamentally change its position as it relates to what athletes' rights are and what they can and cannot do. We've created a morass for ourselves. I'd throw the whole book out and start again, and make the rules the same for athletes and students.
"Either athletics is part of the academic institution or it's not. And if it's not, then I would vote to get rid of it, have clubs and go the way the Europeans have gone quite nicely for centuries."
Athletics reform
The Rev. James N. Loughran, president
St. Peter's College
Trusteeship Magazine
"Unilateral disarmament is unthinkable. No one has the nerve or desire to get out. Many sincerely believe that reform is possible and work hard at it. Yet things only get worse: more corruption, more financial extravagance, greater neglect of (other) values, and the rest ....
"(Presidential) efforts are doomed to fail if you take your mandate to be 'reform,' if you allow to continue the business-as-usual pattern of legislating more rules and calling for more vigilant enforcement while at the same time negotiating ever more lucrative TV contracts, million-dollar endorsements, and the like. You have a chance to succeed only if you acknowledge the contradiction built into big-time sports and force a choice between professionalism and amateurism, dollars and academic integrity ... You will fail unless you separate winning and money ....
"Big-time college sports conflict not only with amateurism but also with academic integrity and the ideals of any good college; in the system that exists, this conflict is inescapable, and therefore, reform is impossible."
Gambling
Dan Allen, football coach
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester Sunday Telegram
"Gambling is such a socially accepted phenomenon. Every state has lotteries. Our kids are brought up with it."
Rita Castagna, director of athletics
Assumption College
Worcester Sunday Telegram
"I'm sure some gambling goes on at all colleges. But I haven't seen or heard much of it here .... Athletes have to be especially careful because it's against NCAA rules and could affect their eligibility. They have to think through the consequences. "
Anonymous football player, Worcester State College
Worcester Sunday Telegram
"Gambling is most prevalent among college athletes. Every team has at least a couple of gamblers. The easiest place on campus to find a bookie is a practice. It won't take long to find someone on a team who knows how to get a bet down with a bookie."
Serge DeBari, men's basketball coach
Assumption College
Worcester Sunday Telegram
"The plate is pretty full with issues. Alcohol, drugs, now gambling. It's quite a bill of fare. We have to assign some priorities. I'd have to say I'm extremely concerned about substance abuse. If I had my druthers I'd rather have a problem with someone who might have played a football card than someone who abused drugs."
Coaches' salaries
Rodney Fort, sports economist
Washington State University
The Associated Press
"A lot of my colleagues at the university are hostile to the athletic department. The athletic department tries to cast itself as a teacher of life skills and all that stuff, and parts of the intellectual community just laugh at that. But I love to point out to those guys, when they start getting on their high horse about coaches' TV contracts, that they're just jealous because the best outside income opportunity they can generate is some consulting money for a pharmaceutical company, and it just doesn't pay as much. That's the only difference."
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