After 30 years in the sports information profession, I got busted. Yup, there's a terse letter from the boss in my personnel file for violation of NCAA Bylaw 13.11.8 (Announcement of Signing).

The last thing on Earth I would want to do is embarrass my alma mater, my president, my athletics director, my compliance people, our student-athletes, my fellow intercollegiate athletics staff members, my SID peers, my family and myself over this violation, this so-called "secondary" NCAA violation. I bleed Northern Illinois University cardinal and black. I have since my freshman year in 1966 and started doing it professionally fulltime in my sports information guise in 1973.

The basic inner conflict here is the Constitution versus the piece of paper I have signed for 30 years at an NCAA institution indicating my compliance or adherence to those set of rules. Think about it for a minute. I've been fortunate to make a living for 30 years in the realm of major college athletics due to the NCAA. As a sports information type, I also have been free to disseminate information about my school, our student-athletes, coaches, administrators and the NCAA for the same duration because of the First Amendment. In our society, these abstracts co-exist, they feed on each other, and they sometimes contradict each other.

You know, for me, it's been a long time since the Law of the Press in the college classroom. Yet, in my mind, the essence or basics of public relations and sports information -- even in the 21st century -- still revolve around good, solid journalism. Along with the new technology, I would hope our colleges and universities still teach the same tenets in the communications/journalism academic environment and impress upon this generation that the unimpeded flow of information is a necessity in a democratic system.

So, how did I violate an NCAA bylaw? By doing my job as an SID and as a journalist. I relayed some information or what media types call "news." It was a lazy Thursday last July when the sports editor of the local daily newspaper faxed me a news release from Gatorade PR people that one of our National Letter of Intent signees in football had just been named our state's high-school boys track and field player of the year.

Obviously, in the five months since the traditional National Letter release that first Wednesday in February, this student-athlete had a great spring in track -- repeating as the state hurdles champion and winning another Illinois sprint title. The DeKalb Daily Chronicle ran the full Gatorade release and the Chicago Tribune edited it to a single paragraph in its Friday editions. In my professional judgment, this track award is what old-timers in journalism call a "matter of record." With that in mind, not to mention our other local media outlets who may be unaware of this news, I rewrote the Gatorade release, faxed it to our other locals, and posted it on our athletics Web site.

The parade into my office started that next Monday morning. First in line was our compliance person. "Mike," she asked politely, "can we remove that track athlete of the year story from the Web site? It might be an NCAA violation." My reply: "To remove that story also might be a violation of the First Amendment. Someone could say it was a form of censorship. With all due respect, my staff is not removing the story."

Next came another staffer who expressed empathy for my end of the situation, but remained steadfast about the NCAA bylaw. "I understand, but I believe that it's still a form of censorship. The story stays on our Web site," I said. Then, our technology person called. "Is that track story supposed to be on our Web site?" I called my lawyer.

Two weeks later, I received the obligatory letter from my AD indicating my violation of Bylaw 13.11.8. So, by being employed at an institution in compliance with NCAA rules, have I forfeited my First Amendment rights? It hurts to admit it, but I guess so. Even I didn't need my attorney to tell me that one.

Take another minute to think about the voluminous amount of information that our profession generates every day and how it is almost magically and instantly transmitted. Thanks to these mediums, we truly do live in a Global Village. For someone like me who recalls the "old days" when unwieldy videotape was three inches wide or the SID's best tools were the typewriter, the ditto machine, the percentage book, the hand-held calculator, or the six-minute facsimile machine, the fact that our technology can disseminate press releases, entire media guides, four-color pictures, audio, video, etc., via cyberspace is mind-blowing. While all this hi-tech stuff is great, the bottom line is that our profession can use these communication devices because of our free society and the Constitution.

Common sense -- and my compliance people -- tell me that the particular rule I violated originated as a form of protection against the SID-media publicity machine generating "unfair recruiting advantages" with prospective student-athletes.

Nobody is yelling "fire" in the crowded NCAA theater here. By doing the aforementioned release, I was not trying to entice another recruit or create any unfair advantage for our program. It was news -- news in a free society. There's one game and several sets or rules. It's a little more serious than DH vs. no DH.

There are not that many NCAA rules that pertain to dissemination of information. I think this matter needs to be clarified because there are valid First Amendment issues involved. While this is not exactly a mainstream issue for the NCAA, it does affect a lot of people within intercollegiate athletics and on every campus.

Mike Korcek is the assistant athletics director for media relations at Northern Illinois University. A version of this piece appeared previously in the CoSIDA Digest.