The Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet plans a comprehensive review of the entire recruiting model, with the goal of building a new paradigm that will set the appropriate level of regulation in each sport.

The cabinet hopes legislative proposals can be available for the 2010-11 legislative cycle.

The review, set to begin early next year, is intended to reduce the number of “quick-fix” measures that the membership introduces each year. In this year’s legislative cycle, more than half of the proposals have sought to modify recruiting rules.

Cabinet members are concerned that the high number of recruiting proposals indicates the current model isn’t working. Instead of continuing with a reaction-based approach, the cabinet believes a thorough study of the entire model is necessary.

The cabinet’s review will focus on communication (both methods and frequency), evaluations (including athletics and academic evaluations, and camps and clinics), campus visits (official and unofficial) and offers of aid (verbal and written). The group will discuss all four areas and, most importantly, how they interact with each other. It hopes to construct several models for membership review.

Cabinet chair Petrina Long, senior associate athletics director at UCLA, said she recognizes that different sports with higher-profile recruiting environments may have a need for more regulation while other sports may need fewer rules.

“We realize that many in the membership are frustrated with problems in the current model,” she said. “At the same time, we’ve been busy in the past year taking a close look at issues related to coaching limits and noncoaching staff, which is another priority item, as noted during the August Board of Directors meeting and the recent Knight Commission meetings.

“So we’re looking at complex issues across the board and need to be comprehensive in terms of soliciting feedback on the recruiting model as well, which may take longer than some would like.”

The Legislative Council expressed frustration in October at the cabinet’s lack of support for measures reigning in early recruiting in women’s soccer. Similar proposals for women’s lacrosse failed to receive support last year, in part to give the recruiting cabinet time to review the entire model and also due to a reluctance to legislate rules for a single sport. But some Council members indicated they might be wavering on that stance because of a need to address the issue of coaches recruiting student-athletes earlier and earlier.

The Council wants legitimate change in recruiting rules, which Long said the cabinet intends to propose as quickly as possible. She said the cabinet has a general principle to not support the bulk of piecemeal, sport-by-sport legislation, especially when it is about to embark on a larger review of “fundamental problems in the recruiting model.”

For example, while many have identified early recruitment as a serious issue in a number of sports, earlier verbal offers of athletics aid are just part of the problem. Regulating the timing of offers is not enough to solve all the concerns with early recruitment. For a coach to be in a position to offer aid early in the recruiting process, that coach must be evaluating and communicating with prospects earlier as well. This leads to a number of questions the cabinet will examine:

• Should evaluations be prohibited until later in the process?
• While there are regulations on when coaches can initiate communication with prospects, communication is generally permissible at any time if the prospect initiates it or if it occurs on campus. Therefore, do the regulations regarding communication need to be more restrictive at certain times during recruiting, regardless of who initiates the communication? 
• What role does prospects’ attendance at institutional camps and clinics play in early recruitment concerns? 

These are the types of questions the cabinet will examine to address the more fundamental questions of when the process should start and what it should look like throughout the time an individual is a prospect.

The National Association for Athletics Compliance agreed that a more comprehensive approach to solving the recruiting problem is appropriate.

“The NAAC believes that early recruitment issues should be investigated further by the recruiting cabinet for all sports before the adoption of any legislation,” said NAAC President Amy Folan, associate athletics director at Texas. “We feel that a more holistic approach is appropriate and necessary to develop a structure better equipped to address today’s problems. Early recruitment is a significant concern for compliance personnel, coaches and prospects. It is time to examine the legislation in a thorough manner rather than on a piecemeal basis.”

Long hopes to begin gathering input from administrators and student-athletes at the 2010 NCAA Convention in Atlanta. The cabinet will devote much of its February 2010 meeting to this issue with the goal of developing several new models. The models would then be shared with the membership for review and feedback in the spring and summer next year, with the potential of legislative proposals being sponsored for the 2010-11 cycle.