<p>I believe the early recruiting happens two ways:</p>
<p>1) at summer camps. It is my understanding that anything goes when you are on a college campus. Coaches can make early offers if you are attending an on-campus camp;
2) contacting club coaches. I don’t believe there is a prohibition on a college coach contacting a club coach early and expressing his/her interest in a younger player. The club coach then shares that information with the younger player.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>As early as 8th grade D was being invited to “camps” at schools by coaches she’d met at ODP and elsewhere. This is all they can do and then there is a form the kids can fill out indicating wether or not they are interested. This is all explained to the girls at ODP state and regionals and pool camps. The coaches cannot “call back,” but I believe they might be allowed to answer emails…It starts very young, indeed. Girls who will be recruited really do know before they even start thier freshman year of high school But this is not “heavily” recruited. It’s just “in the air.” Really obvious. It starts when they start getting recruited to very high level clubs.</p>
<p>I should note that she did not know where the coaches she met were coaching, the camp forms and whatnot just started showing up in the mail. Then, she could kind of figure it out for herself. But they aren’t allowed to tell the girls where they coach.</p>
<p>The realities of a D1 varsity program can be daunting. And the excitement and prestige of being recruited to a top program can be so heady that the very physical realities of the commitment can be easily overlooked. This is true for young women and young men.</p>
<p>I’m the mother of a son who loves the physical intensity of his sport and the training for his sport. I don’t know many girls that are as enthralled with the conditioning demands on a top athlete. The physical demands on the collegiate level are so much more than the requirements to compete successfully in high school. Most kids just don’t get how much different it is.</p>
<p>My son is not having a normal, typical, college experience. He’s on a very strict high protein diet. His workout schedule and practice schedule run his life. His academics are a close second. His fraternity is mostly composed of team members, and the frat social life is worked around the team plans. There is almost no down time during the school year, and none during season. Would he change his college experience? Not a chance … but it’s absolutely not for everyone. He is living his dream. And he has certainly made some tradeoffs.</p>
<p>Coaches can’t answer emails either (although some do). They can speak with you on the telephone if you initiate the call, and they can speak with you on the campus of their own school.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many serious recruits enjoy a “normal” high school experience, but a rigorous academic and competitive athletic schedule pretty much take over even the high school experience. Playing year-round, traveling, and studying leave little time for anything else unless the student coasts academically.</p>
<p>What we’ve seen are some athletes who really burned out by the time they were expected to play in college. They either didn’t want to continue, or started playing in college and then stopped after the first year or two.</p>
<p>keylyme, are you sure coaches can’t reply to emails? I did a quick look through the current NCAA rule book (400 plus pages!!!). The D1 rules say coaches can reply to written questions from students, in writing. It doesn’t say whether the writing has to be in the form of snail mail, or a letter, and it also doesn’t specifically rule out e-mail replies. </p>
<p>Logically (and from experience) if a high school student/athlete is trying to “self-recruit” and set up meetings on campuses with coaches, and also ask specific questions about programs, the coach can and should respond. The coach cannot activiely recruit the student until the specific window for each sport, but they can reply to requests for meetings and otherwise share information requested by the student.</p>
<p>If you are reading (or have heard) something else, please post the link. This is important.</p>
<p>emails are ok. They did take away texts.</p>
<p>NorthMinnesota, that’s my understanding as well. Texting exploded for a while there, before NCAA shut it down. I would think email would be considered much more benign, and within the control of the student to choose when and whether to receive, unlike texting.</p>
<p>Concerning Ivy league athletes leaving their sports once enrolled-- often there is a huge shock when they realize the extreme academic demands of a top tier school coupled with the demanding practice schedule. Professors do not give allowances to athletes (in fact often assume they are automatically less committed to coursework), and the travel time means many missed classes. </p>
<p>Many of the coaches never graduated from Ivies and have no idea of the time consumed by class readings, problem sets, and papers. They see the athletes as semi-pro, not students. The student-athletes also must worry about their GPAs for graduate, law or med schools. </p>
<p>So sometimes it is not “lack of commitment”, it is facing reality in a highly competitive environment.</p>
<p>fauve, my D just finished her freshman year as an Ivy athlete, and while it was a challenging year, she wouldn’t change a thing. I do know she was pleasantly surprised to find professors willing to work with her around her travel schedule, adjusting due dates and exam times if needed. She had no problem getting notes for missed lectures directly from professors. Most of the time, she turned things in or took exams BEFORE leaving town, always felt respected by her teachers and certainly felt she was taken seriously as a student. She and her teammates compete in the academic arena on par with non-athletes, in her experience.</p>
<p>During recruiting, I asked many Ivy athletes at a number of schools if they thought their grades would be better if they weren’t competing. Without exception, all of them said they felt their grades would be worse because they wouldn’t structure their time as well as they do with the dual commitment. I know this is all anecdotal, and obviously I’ve talked with kids for whom this is working, and not the ones who walked away. You and others have had different experiences. It likely depends on the sport and school, so I hope prospective athletes will ask a lot of questions along these lines as they go through the process. </p>
<p>Your point about coaches is an interesting one. In my daughter’s sport, all the coaches she works with are graduates of the school she attends. Possibly that contributes to the favorable climate for student-athletes. During recruiting they were certainly able to address the sports/academic balance and how they handled things.</p>
<p>Emails are definitely NOT allowed. I first asked the director of compliance at my daughter’s DI school. They were aghast that a school was communicating with my son and wanted to know which school. I then called the NCAA directly. NO EMAIL, LETTER, TEXTING, etc. until after the date allowed for the specific sport (September 1 of the junior year for my son). Many coaches have answered my son by politely saying something to the effect that while they plan on being at the event he will be playing in, they will not be able to reply to any further emails until after September 1 of his junior year.</p>
<p>Keylyme, that’s weird, because you’re the ONLY person I’ve heard who’s been told this. We even visited the University of Texas, and the coach said it’s fine for my son (a rising senior) to e-mail my son (he has been for a few months). He did say the call restrictions are onerous - he has to keep a detailed log that is checked regularly. Interesting. The NCAA must not be getting the word out to coaches, because I know Texas is VERY careful about the rules. I will actually talk to my dad about this, because he’s involved with Texas athletics.</p>
<p>[NCAA</a> rules on communication technology vary by division - NCAA.org](<a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?key=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2009/division+i/ncaa+rules+on+communication+technology+vary+by+division_06_04_09_ncaa_news]NCAA”>http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?key=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2009/division+i/ncaa+rules+on+communication+technology+vary+by+division_06_04_09_ncaa_news)</p>
<p>Check out 13.4.1.2 in NCAA guidelines concerning emails.</p>
<p>I think keylyme is saying emails are only allowed during the legal contact period which starts Sept 1st Junior year for her son’s sport.</p>
<p>It looks like we agree that email during junior and senior year seems to be allowed. Some student-athletes on CC are asking if they can contact coaches during their sophomore year. Although I couldn’t find a definitive answer to this in the rule book, as I stated in an earlier post, coaches were allowed to respond “in writing” to emailed questions from prospective athletes. Now whether this is allowed prior to junior year is not spelled out, at least in that section of the NCAA rule book. </p>
<p>I think it’s always OK to preface an email to a coach with “I’m a sophomore, so please let me know if you are not allowed to respond to my questions yet.” </p>
<p>My sense is the NCAA is generally trying to protect and serve students so communications that benefit them (student initiated questions of coaches, in contrast to coach emails recruiting students) would be tolerated.</p>
<p>Oh, OK, now I understand. I’m in “rising senior” mode, so that’s how I’m thinking. S just started communicating with coaches this past winter.</p>
<p>Yes…sorry for the confusion…I was talking about the period before “legal” communication is allowed. My son is still a rising junior.</p>
<p>The rule (as it was explained to me, for my son’s sport) is that the athlete can talk to the coach over the telephone, if the athlete initiates the call (the coach cannot return a call; he must be there when the athlete calls), the athlete can talk to the coach on the campus of the coach’s school. The coach may not respond to texts, emails, written correspondence (before September 1 of the athlete’s junior year). I think it is okay to send a polite reply acknowledging receipt of an email as most schools have replied to my son’s initial contact email with variations of “NCAA rules prevent us from any correspondence until September 1 of your junior year. Please send us any updates and keep in touch.”</p>
<p>The NCAA Rules board is full of old farts who can’t keep up with technology trends and don’t know how they work. For instance, they banned/regulated text messaging, so coaches started AIMing players. Then the NCAA caught wind of that and banned/regulated it. Now, coaches have caught on with Facebook. A coach can create a Facebook page and can be friends with a recruit. However, the coach can’t write on the recruit’s wall. The coaches can’t AIM recruits, but can “chat/IM” them on Facebook. Coaches can’t write on recruits Facebook page or AIM them, but they can create a Twitter page, “follow” recruits, and DM them.</p>
<p>There are always holes in the rules, and the coaches study and search aggressively to find them. Technology trends are moving way too fast for the NCAA to keep up…</p>
<p>I don’t think all coaches do that…only unethical ones. The rules are in place for a reason, after all…particularly with revenue sports.</p>
<p>Most of what I follow is women’s basketball. I think Elena Delle Donne is the highest profile player to do that. She was the consensus #1 player, extremely skilled, supposed to be very very good. She came to the Uconn campus for summer classes and left after two days. At the end of the summer, she announced her decision to attend the University of Delaware and play volleyball.</p>
<p>Extenuating circumstances – Elena is from Delaware. She has a sister that she is very close to who is blind, deaf, autistic, and has cerebral palsy. Elena wants to be a special education teacher, though she could almost certainly make a career out of basketball. </p>
<p>She played volleyball last year, but will play basketball this year at Delaware. I’ve heard of other cases, it definitely happens. I think especially with high-profile recruits, there can be a lot of pressure to commit early, go far away from home, and/or consider sports implications more than social and academic. It is your life. I read recently that a player at Uconn hasn’t been home since the team played in her state last December. Can you imagine that if you weren’t comfortable with the team, the coach, or the location of the school? I think that these things need to be very seriously considered when the player makes the original commitment, but the player also (with serious consideration) needs to be able to realize when he/she made a mistake. Another Uconn commit, Jacqui Gemelos, reneged on her verbal at the beginning of her senior year. She had committed when she was 15. That does seem early to be locked into a decision affecting your life.</p>