NCAA News Archive - 2000

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Basketball issues group takes initial strides toward recruiting reform
Men's subcommittee tabs proposals to control summer events


Dec 18, 2000 4:54:39 PM


The NCAA News

A four-pronged effort to restructure the recruiting environment in Division I men's basketball has been developed that retains a summer evaluation period, enhances the important role of coaches and attempts to restrict what have been called the unseemly influences on the game.

The men's subcommittee of the newly created Division I Basketball Issues Committee, meeting December 6-7 in Chicago, proposed a combination of certification, education, regulation and accommodation to redesign the Division I men's basketball recruiting environment.

The package, which will be included for discussion at the Division I forum January 8 at the NCAA Convention in Orlando, Florida, will come before the Division I Management Council for the first time in April 2001, be sent out for membership comment and then return to the Council and Board of Directors for final action in October 2001.

The Basketball Issues Committee, which was developed this fall and given an initial charge of reforming the current recruiting environment, is composed of a women's subcommittee and a men's subcommittee, the latter of which developed the four-part recruiting package.

"I've never seen a group come together so quickly, act so professionally for the good of the whole, and end up with a product of work that has real value," said Kenneth A. Shaw, chancellor at Syracuse University and chair of the men's subcommittee.

The subcommittee's four-pronged approach includes a certification component that would require comprehensive financial audits of all summer basketball events, including camps, tournaments and traveling teams. The certification component also would identify those individuals connected to youth sports who have fiduciary relationships with NCAA coaches.

"We should be able to see the source of the money and how it's being spent -- and we certainly need to keep sports agents away from managing or financially supporting such events," Shaw said.

The certification program also would shed light on other areas, such as what corporations involved in youth basketball are paying institutions, what schools pay nonscholastic coaches to come speak on campus or bring their teams, and how teams and prospects are paying for travel to camps and tournaments.

"In other words," Shaw said, "what are the fiduciary connections between sources of money and youth basketball? That's what we're after."

The subcommittee's reform package also includes an educational component that attempts to specify the curriculum for the educational elements at each event. Part of this educational process includes a mentoring program that identifies elite-level prospects and gives them a counselor who can counteract those individuals whose advice might lead them astray.

In addition, the subcommittee recommends a regulation and enforcement component that increases NCAA oversight at certified events and provides required compliance sessions for coaches.

"That's going to cost money, and we had better be prepared to recognize that there are no cost-free solutions," Shaw said. "But we have to put some teeth in our efforts to cull the bad apples from the barrel."

Shaw said part of the enhanced monitoring and enforcement effort is the role conference offices and institutional compliance officers can play in watching for violations of recruiting bylaws.

The subcommittee also looked at the appropriate length for the summer evaluation period. The current period lasts 24 days, a total that will be reduced to 14 for the 2001 summer period. The subcommittee's proposal is for a 20-day period to be established in summer 2002. Shaw said the group believes a 20-day period satisfies the minimum needed, is the most that can be monitored with a stronger enforcement effort, and is what prospects can handle without "wearing out."

Shaw also said the subcommittee looked at ways to enhance the overall recruiting process.

"We want to accommodate improved relationships between prospects and NCAA coaches, between secondary and higher education, and between youth and other developmental basketball and intercollegiate athletics," he said.

"Again, our goal is to minimize nonscholastic influences and increase exposure of prospects to those associated with secondary or higher education."

To that end, Shaw said the subcommittee supports the concept of earlier access to prospects by college coaches but with minimal intrusiveness into their lives -- specifically, contact between NCAA coaches and prospects in April of the prospect's junior year.

The subcommittee also supports:

  • Evaluation of basketball events during this newly established contact period in April of a prospect's junior year, but under certain controls.

  • Eliminating evaluation opportunities at sites other than the a prospect's school during the September contact period.

  • Permitting prospects to place collect or toll-free calls to coaches earlier than is currently permitted. Such contacts should strengthen the relationship between prospects and NCAA coaches and diminish the prospect's reliance on outside influences.

  • Allowing coaches to make calls beginning approximately a year earlier than currently is allowed.

  • Increasing the number of phone calls to junior prospects, but limiting them to one per month. In addition, written correspondence could begin after the sophomore year.

  • Allowing official visits at the beginning of the junior year, but without increasing the total number of official visits beyond the current five.

    Shaw believes the package will go a long way toward cleaning up what has become a troubled area in college basketball. Similar to the basketball issues reform package approved last year, the proposals are more than a compromise but short of extreme.

    "In my opinion, the proposals stack up pretty well, but not perfectly," Shaw said. "Perfect may be beyond our grasp. Our legislative history tells us that the unscrupulous will always find ways to manipulate our best intentions, and we will always have to close loopholes. These proposals won't cure everything, and they won't last forever.

    "We've got it to the point where there shouldn't be wholesale opposition, and what opposition there is would come from those who want to eliminate the summer period entirely -- we can't satisfy that, or those who feel we've gone too far, that we're going to regulate too aggressively."

    The December meeting was the men's subcommittee's second since the Basketball Issues Committee was formed. The group plans to meet again in January.

    In addition, the women's subcommittee met for the first time and established a list of priorities to address in future meetings. Primary issues include marketing and promotion, including television; quality of the game, including what many see as a lack of parity in the game; recruiting issues; and student-athlete welfare issues.

    Men's subcommittee recommendations regarding basketball recruiting

  • Certification program requiring financial audits of summer events.

  • More involvement in determining education curriculum at events.

  • Regulation/enforcement component to increase NCAA oversight.

  • Establish a 20-day summer evaluation period beginning in 2002.

  • Provide coaches with earlier access to prospects, but with less intrusion.

  • Permit prospects to call coaches earlier than currently allowed.

  • Increase the number of phone calls to juniors, with one-per-month limit.


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