That is so bad. Really feel for him and his family. Glad he has an opportunity elsewhere
Edsall is rightly getting crucified for this on ESPN and other places. Hope it works out for the kid. Just another example that the grass is not always greener, and while this board seems to focus on Ivy/NESCAC et al recruiting and issues, recruiting is an ugly, ugly business at all levels.
Also note to parents…not all schools who offer athletic scholarships guarantee all 4 years. It’s a year by year proposition for some. I believe the power 5 conferences are currently the only ones guaranteeing 4 year athletic scholarships.
Similar thing just happened to one of the kids at my D’s high school. Just got a call last week and told that he no longer had his football scholarship so the AD and coaches are working the phones to try and find him another school. Unfortunately, this does happen and there are kids that get dumped before ever getting there or even get dumped after a year or two. Different school but still, similar situation.
My niece actually took one of her schools off her list after something the coach said to her during her recruiting visit this summer. Basically said that they had too many girls on the squad so they were going to cut some to make room for incoming girls like my niece. She didn’t want to think she was responsible for someone getting cut or loosing their scholarship because of her. Now the truth is this probably happens at several schools but this was the first one that actually admitted it to her. Turned her off on that school otherwise she was ready to commit to them.
Watching my niece go through the process and also joining her on one of her visits was a real eye opener.
Here’s an article on the risks of this kind of thing for the coaches involved.
http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2013/03/25/ucla-ben-howland
@moscott As for many things, there are loopholes and I hear many schools are using them. While some individual conferences are required to give a multi-year financial aid NLI, the loophole means it could look like: Year 1-100%, Year 2-0%, Year 3-0%, Year 4-0%. The Pac 12 does require 2 years, your first and last, if offering a scholarship, I understand.
It’s always best to find out what kind of reputation a coach has in regards to pulling scholarships for reasons other than injury. In the end, nothing is set in stone until that NLI is signed.
@crimsonmom2019, you can’t really follow that model in head count sports though. In those, any one on scholarship is a counter, so essentially all scholarships are full rides.
As of 2015, all Power 5 schools (Big Ten, Pac 12, SEC, ACC, Big 12) are prohibited from pulling a scholarship for four years (with four narrow exceptions), as long as the athlete signed their initial letter of intent after January 1, 2015. I do not know whether the language of the rule means that athletes in non headcount sports can have their athletic aid reduced in the out years, which would be a pretty big loophole. Another problem is that in the head count sports most of the kids are on five year plans (a redshirt year and four years of eligibility) so they may not be able to complete their degree within the guaranteed four years.
@Ohiodad51 It’s not considered pulling it if they let you know on the front end exactly what you are getting. That’s the loophole coaches are using. I know for a fact that a head count sport multi-year NLI looked like this for a Pac 12 scholarship this year: Year 1: 100%, Year 2: 0%, Year 3: 0%, Year 4: 100%. If the athlete performed, they could have years added on but those two years could never be taken away.
I have heard of this also in women’s volleyball, which is a head count sport - full ride but for 2 or 3 rather than 4 years. I’m not sure of all the ins and outs on the rules but have definitely heard of it.
I have no idea what sport you guys are talking about, but in the revenue sports at least there would be no point in a scholarship “deal” like you are discussing. Even if it is not a violation of the rule passed last year, all of the Power 5 schools require that their revenue teams be fully funded, so I don’t know how it would work where you are not providing a counter with athletic aid.
And @bluewater2015, I am pretty sure that the four year guarantee only kicks in if athletic aid is provided for the first year. I believe the rule was written that way to allow coaches to reward walk on when a scholly frees up semester to semester. But I can certainly see how coaches in the women’s headcount sports could use that loophole to get around the four year rule, particularly in cases where funding may be an issue.
Last year when Baylor imploded and the NCAA released 8 or 9 freshmen from their NLIs, Texas suddenly had room for 4 of them. No way did Texas just have 4 freshman scholarships waiting just in case someone came along. Someone got dumped, red shirted, redirected.
Just after my daughter finished her recruiting and signed the NLI, I read an article about how mean the Louisville coach was/is, yelling at players in airports, allowing/encouraging hazing, treating some players as special and the rest as dirt. Louisville has, of course, had issues with other sports too and the AD seems to allow it to go on. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask D’s new coach about such things, about how she treats her players, whether she yells a lot (turns out she does), what kind of relationship she has with her players. The sport was new to the school, but I guess I could have contacted players at her former school or at least looked at her record. Nope, just accepted what she told us. We were lucky and it’s worked out. Her coach promised to renew her scholarship if she continued to play (with effort) and the coach has kept that promise with each player.
It does seem @Ohiodad51 that these deals are a women’s headcount sports thing. Another female athlete I know is a verbal commit for a 3 year deal. Again, because it is Pac 12, the first and last year must be given and once the NLI is signed the 3 years can not be taken away but a year could be added if the she performed and there was a year freed up somehow.
As you noted upthread, it can be an ugly, ugly business. As parents, all you can do is hope you’ve done your homework so once an offer is made, you’re as comfortable as you can be that what you see/have been told is what your child will get.
In our town many kids especially in lax and soccer brag about their verbal commitments in 10th grade and I am always so worried for them as its a long time until it really is a commitment.
@fleishmo6 NCAA is considering a new rule that would prevent any recruiting until junior year. No unofficial visits, no form of communication, nothing. It was proposed by the gymnastics community who have a real problem in this area.
Unofficial visits for us were priceless. I do not feel removing those will help it’s the process after the unofficial visits that need to be calmed down.
Visiting schools, meeting coaches and seeing the facilities allow you to determine if you would ultimately want to use one of your precious OVs on that school or not
The NCAA already has rules limiting recruiting contact prior to junior year in all sports with a few defined exceptions in hockey and basketball. See https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Division%20I%20Recruiting%20Overview%20Chart2014.pdf
Here is an article on a proposal to eliminate unofficial visits and unsolicited phone calls in lacrosse, a subject which has been discussed quite a bit on this board. It appears that proposal has been derailed somewhat. Haven’t seen anything about gymnastics specifically.
And here is an article about the Ivy League’s similar proposed rule covering all sports. From what I have heard, the Ivy proposal is unlikely to be adopted.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2016/09/23/stricter-recruiting-rules-proposed/
At the end of the day, I find it illuminating that the most recent changes to the rules on contact (the first link above) actually loosened restrictions on timing of initial contact and types of contact. So it doesn’t seem like the NCAA is focused on tightening things up generally.
The problem in some of these sports is the club coaches. There is really no effective rules governing contact between schools and club coaches. This used to be a huge problem in AAU basketball, and still is to some extent, although the NCAA has been paying more attention to it over the last couple decades. Hopefully the people in Indianapolis will start dealing with the issue in some of the other sports.
Crimsonmom, each sport has their own rules, and the NCAA doesn’t seem to set contact rules othe than during ‘dead periods’. Lacrosse has been ‘considering’ this for about 5 years, and yet there are 8th graders giving/getting commitments. They aren’t planning to give up unofficial visits, but would stop coach contact through club and high school coaches and eliminate the verbal offers to younger kids.
The college coaches have supported this, but then turn around and add a ‘debut level’ (8th and 9th graders) to the summer showcase tournaments run by the coaches’ association. $$$
I like no visits until junior year. The athlete has a better idea about what they want in a college (academics, size, culture, athletic rigor) and a coach has a better idea of where they really are as an athlete. So many gymnasts choose a school first semester freshman year after unofficial visits as 7th and 8th graders which is ridiculous. But if you don’t choose by early sophomore year, most schools have no scholarship spots available and some not even walk on spots. An ugly vicious circle.
Baseball is the same way. Kids who have never played a HS inning are committing to power 5 conferences. Makes no sense to me.
Not sure why the UCONN situation that started the thread is particularly newsworthy, kids get offers pulled and it never makes the news. It’s wrong, but it happens.