Once again, the NCAA is trying to over legislate the current recruiting calendar. As has been the trend for the past 10 years, they continue to reduce the time that college coaches can evaluate players. They also continue to limit the opportunities for thousands of student-athletes. The latest change is to eliminate the April live period (5.3.2.3). Let’s take a look at what the NCAA says it is trying to do, and why. I hope this will help stir some meaningful, rational discussion on the matter.
The NCAA states that the reason for this legislative change is “intended to address concerns about the significant amount of class time missed by prospective student-athletes during key academic time periods in order to accommodate travel to and from events, the disruption to the relationship between NCAA Division I basketball coaches and their own student-athletes during a critical academic time period and the increasing role of outside influences during the April contact period.”
There are 3 separate issues in their rationale: missed class time, time away from their college student athletes, and outside influences. Let’s look at these issues separately.
MISSED CLASS TIME: The NCAA would make you think that teams are criss crossing the country throughout the month missing “significant” class time. We have just completed our 2 big April “live” events that have featured over 5,000 players. Of those 5,000 participants, less than 20% of those student-athletes missed even 1 day of school! The vast majority of teams are within driving distance of the events in which they participate. They leave after school is over on Friday and are home by Sunday afternoon. Those teams that do fly to events often are not scheduled to play until Saturday. This allows them to fly out after school on Friday. Of the over 500 teams that played in one of our Jam Fest events these past 2 weekends, I know of just 1 team that did not get home on Sunday. When you also factor in that the April period usually includes weeks that involve spring school breaks for Easter and Passover, there is even less opportunity for missed class. Compare this to the extraordinary amount of time that NCAA student-athletes are forced to miss due to travel. It is not even close!
Likewise, high school students routinely miss school for official and unofficial visits to NCAA institutions. Most official visits involve missing 2 days of school. Multiply that by the 5 allowed official visits and possibly a few unofficial visits, and it is not unusual for a player to miss upwards of 10-15 days of school in pursuit of a college scholarship. If the NCAA is concerned about HS students missing class time, it would seem that a better idea for legislation would be to mandate official visits only when it does not involve missing class time.
Another flawed assumption in this argument is that these events will not exist without the college coaches. The vast majority of these tournaments will continue to operate with or without college coaches. High School student-athletes are better served and protected when these events are run under NCAA certification guidelines or those of independent state high school associations.
Time away from their college student-athletes: While I agree wholeheartedly with the premise, this new legislation will have the complete opposite effect. Under the current system, coaches are allowed to attend sanctioned events only on Saturdays and Sundays! So I guess under the new format coaches will be on campus these 2 weekends monitoring the academic progress of their student-athletes. Are you kidding me? The students aren’t in class on the weekend! I suspect that the last place these coaches would be on these weekends will be on campus. They will be with their families, relaxing, or whatever else they do with their free time.
At these current events, college coaches are able to see hundreds of players in one spot. It helps save them time and money to evaluate these players going head to head in one place. Now they will have to travel 20 times more during this period to basically see one player at a time. That is if they even get a chance to see the kid play. Most states don’t allow their HS coaches to run practice or even have open gym once their season is completed. At best, it is a workout where it is hard to really get a true read on the player’s ability.
So now instead of being around on campus during the week when your student-athletes need them, coaches will be forced to be out even more during the week. They will no longer have the luxury of being “in” during the week, and “out” on the weekends. I guarantee you that this new rule will take college coaches away from their student-athletes even more!!
Outside Influences: While I do not agree with the blanket negative portrayal of grassroots basketball by the NCAA, let’s just say for argument’s sake that we agree with the NCAA assertion that these outside influencers need to be removed. This new legislation will do nothing to lessen the importance of these influencers. Grassroots tournaments will be played across the country next April whether or not college coaches are allowed to attend. Players play. They don’t just play so college coaches can watch. They play to compete. They play to improve. They play to challenge themselves. They play for the experience. They play for the love of the game. Just look at all the great May and June tournaments across the country to prove the point.
So now instead of being able to evaluate these players themselves, college coaches will have to depend on these “outside influencers” for feedback, evaluations and reports. Likewise, players and their families will no longer be able to see for themselves the true level of interest from a particular school. Instead, they will rely on information that is relayed from their AAU coach. Instead of decreasing the role of these outside influencers, their importance and impact will be even greater.
As you can see, the new NCAA legislation is flawed in argument and execution. Clearly the new legislation will have the exact opposite effect in 2 of their 3 points of rationale.
There are many other potential problems and unintended consequences from this legislation including:
What about the HS senior who was hurt during the HS season?
What about those players from small rural towns across the country?
What about the mid major and low major programs who sign most of their players in the spring?
What about the additional costs for programs who will now be forced to travel all over to see one player at a time?
What about the high major program who has an unexpected early departure to the NBA or a transfer?
What about the coach who just gets a job in April and finds himself with seven available scholarships?
What about those players who are under the recruiting radar? How do they get coaches to evaluate them?
Are kids who play at their local public HS going to be forced to transfer to a powerhouse private school or prep school to be seen?
More bad evaluations on players will be made. More mistakes will be made in recruiting. More players will transfer. More coaches will be fired.
These and other issues are why this legislation is ill conceived and why it should be overturned in the override period. The legislation is bad for prospective student-athletes, it’s bad for college coaches, and it’s bad for most conferences and institutions!
This week 64 of the top college basketball players in the country are at basketball camp. They are in Orlando Florida for the NBA Pre-Draft Camp. They are trying to catch the eye of the throng of NBA scouts from every team. Years ago many of the same players were at another basketball camp. The summer during high school they attended camp to be noticed by the college scouts. Over 25% of the college players in Orlando this week are Hoop Group alumni. The list: