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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Guest editorial - Stay focused on 'messaging'
The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has one mission and directive as we conduct our business throughout the course of the year.
It is our privilege to speak on the behalf of all student-athletes across the country, and to provide a unified voice that resonates throughout the NCAA membership. The process begins each fall when we receive feedback on proposals in the current legislative cycle from both the campus and conference level. The feedback is vital because it allows the 31 members of the national SAAC to bring our campus and conference positions to our November in-person meeting at which final student-athlete positions are formulated.
The process was no different in fall 2006 when our committee was faced with Proposal No. 06-40, which specified that electronically transmitted correspondence that may be sent to a prospective student-athlete may be limited to only the use of electronic mail and facsimiles, ultimately placing a ban on the use of text and instant messaging. Now that the aforementioned proposal is a part of the override process in the 2007-08 legislative cycle, it is of the utmost importance that the student-athlete voice is heard.
The national SAAC position on the use of text messaging in the recruiting process has always been — and will continue to be — to support Proposal No. 06-40. Our position is predicated on the idea that text messaging is an extremely unprofessional means of correspondence, as it removes the human element from both sides of the equation. A text message is a note, up to 160 characters in most cases, that does not provide either the sender or the recipient with a true sense of what the message is attempting to convey. The same can be said if you were applying for a job. It would not be in your best interest to text your potential employer to find out information about the job or set up an interview, in the same way that the employer would not text the employee with similar information. It is an unprofessional way of conducting business, not to mention the fact that it is also impersonal.
It is almost impossible to be able to really understand the sender’s intent through a text message, because of the lack of depth that the message allows you to go into. Conversely, a hand-written letter or an e-mail can go into more depth about a specific topic.
These “long-hand” forms of written correspondence also allow a coach or a potential student-athlete to garner a greater sense of the person whom they are dealing with. By this, I mean that you get a truer sense of a person’s character by reading a hand-written letter or an e-mail, based on the fact that these forms of correspondence take a higher level of thought to be able to get a point across. The character of athletes across the board has been called into question as a result of steroids, gambling and several other legal issues that have arisen in both collegiate and professional sports in recent years, which makes it even more imperative that prospective student-athletes and coaches know exactly whom they are getting involved with.
Another issue that arises within the text messaging debate is the cost that has been placed upon student-athletes who are receiving the messages. It has been documented in reports, including a piece by Luke Winn in April 2007 on SI.com, that the prospective student-athletes are paying large amounts of money for a ridiculous amount of messages received. Winn’s article said that University of Kentucky signee Patrick Patterson, one of the most sought-after recruits in the class of ’07, received close to 7,000 text messages in the month of March, which resulted in a bill of approximately $507.
Along with being expensive, text messaging is extremely intrusive, because prospective student-athletes are receiving these messages at all hours of the day and night, including but not limited to while they are in class, or even while they are sleeping at night.
Before text messaging exploded onto the scene of collegiate athletics in recent years, athletics departments across the country were still able to recruit the prospective student-athletes they desired through the use of old-fashioned recruiting: permissive phone calls, in-person visits, hand-written letters, and e-mail. As long as there are still prospective student-athletes garnering attention due to their athletic and academic prowess, I can guarantee that schools in the NCAA will still be able to recruit without the use of text messaging.
On behalf of the Division I SAAC, we ask that the Division I Board of Directors and Management Council continue to hold a position of support for Proposal No. 2006-40. We challenge administrators across the membership to continue to emphasize student-athlete well-being as a priority to ensure the success of collegiate athletics.
Kerry B. Kenny is vice chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and a former basketball student-athlete at Lafayette College.
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By Kerry B. Kenny
Lafayette College
Lafayette College
The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has one mission and directive as we conduct our business throughout the course of the year.It is our privilege to speak on the behalf of all student-athletes across the country, and to provide a unified voice that resonates throughout the NCAA membership. The process begins each fall when we receive feedback on proposals in the current legislative cycle from both the campus and conference level. The feedback is vital because it allows the 31 members of the national SAAC to bring our campus and conference positions to our November in-person meeting at which final student-athlete positions are formulated.
The process was no different in fall 2006 when our committee was faced with Proposal No. 06-40, which specified that electronically transmitted correspondence that may be sent to a prospective student-athlete may be limited to only the use of electronic mail and facsimiles, ultimately placing a ban on the use of text and instant messaging. Now that the aforementioned proposal is a part of the override process in the 2007-08 legislative cycle, it is of the utmost importance that the student-athlete voice is heard.
The national SAAC position on the use of text messaging in the recruiting process has always been — and will continue to be — to support Proposal No. 06-40. Our position is predicated on the idea that text messaging is an extremely unprofessional means of correspondence, as it removes the human element from both sides of the equation. A text message is a note, up to 160 characters in most cases, that does not provide either the sender or the recipient with a true sense of what the message is attempting to convey. The same can be said if you were applying for a job. It would not be in your best interest to text your potential employer to find out information about the job or set up an interview, in the same way that the employer would not text the employee with similar information. It is an unprofessional way of conducting business, not to mention the fact that it is also impersonal.
It is almost impossible to be able to really understand the sender’s intent through a text message, because of the lack of depth that the message allows you to go into. Conversely, a hand-written letter or an e-mail can go into more depth about a specific topic.
These “long-hand” forms of written correspondence also allow a coach or a potential student-athlete to garner a greater sense of the person whom they are dealing with. By this, I mean that you get a truer sense of a person’s character by reading a hand-written letter or an e-mail, based on the fact that these forms of correspondence take a higher level of thought to be able to get a point across. The character of athletes across the board has been called into question as a result of steroids, gambling and several other legal issues that have arisen in both collegiate and professional sports in recent years, which makes it even more imperative that prospective student-athletes and coaches know exactly whom they are getting involved with.
Another issue that arises within the text messaging debate is the cost that has been placed upon student-athletes who are receiving the messages. It has been documented in reports, including a piece by Luke Winn in April 2007 on SI.com, that the prospective student-athletes are paying large amounts of money for a ridiculous amount of messages received. Winn’s article said that University of Kentucky signee Patrick Patterson, one of the most sought-after recruits in the class of ’07, received close to 7,000 text messages in the month of March, which resulted in a bill of approximately $507.
Along with being expensive, text messaging is extremely intrusive, because prospective student-athletes are receiving these messages at all hours of the day and night, including but not limited to while they are in class, or even while they are sleeping at night.
Before text messaging exploded onto the scene of collegiate athletics in recent years, athletics departments across the country were still able to recruit the prospective student-athletes they desired through the use of old-fashioned recruiting: permissive phone calls, in-person visits, hand-written letters, and e-mail. As long as there are still prospective student-athletes garnering attention due to their athletic and academic prowess, I can guarantee that schools in the NCAA will still be able to recruit without the use of text messaging.
On behalf of the Division I SAAC, we ask that the Division I Board of Directors and Management Council continue to hold a position of support for Proposal No. 2006-40. We challenge administrators across the membership to continue to emphasize student-athlete well-being as a priority to ensure the success of collegiate athletics.
Kerry B. Kenny is vice chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and a former basketball student-athlete at Lafayette College.
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