The NCAA passed proposed rule changes on January 19th. The new rules will take effect starting August 1st of this year. I am not going to cover all 26 proposed rules but instead focus on the rules that are going to impact your recruiting the most.
Welcome to the Wild West of Recruiting
The goal of the NCAA president and the membership has been to make the recruiting rules easier to understand and allow athletes more opportunities to communicate with coaches. With all of their new rules they have certainly made it easier to understand, because compared to what the rules used to be, there are no rules!
- Any member of the University staff can recruit an athlete. The rule used to be only head coaches and assistant coaches could actively recruit. Now programs will have full-time members on the staff dedicated to recruiting year round.
- Programs can have as many staff members as they want recruiting off campus. The old rule limited the number of staff members who could conduct off campus evaluations of recruits (attend camps, showcases or tournaments). All of those rules have been thrown out in favor of allowing as many staff members to evaluate recruits off campus as the school wants.
- Coach’s can make unlimited phone calls, send text messages and private social media messages to recruits. Previously coaches were limited to a couple phone calls a month (where they called the recruit, not you calling them) and they were never allowed to text or use social media. With the new rules all of that is gone; it will be the responsibility of recruits and families to set guidelines with the coaches and recruiters.
- Universities can send unlimited recruiting materials. In the past, there were obscure rules around when, what and how much mail a program could send a recruit. Those rules have been completely erased and programs are free to send unlimited amounts and types of mail to recruits at anytime.
The Biggest Rule Change Didn’t Even Happen
There was a rule proposed that was going to allow coach’s to begin contacting recruits (outside of just mail) starting June 1st after their Sophomore year of high school. The current rule is, coaches can’t contact you until June 1st after your Junior year. This rule was not passed, which means all of the coaches calling, texting and reaching out through Facebook will have to wait until June 1st after your Junior year of high school.
What This Will Mean for Recruiting and For You
All of the new rules mean there will be more coaches and recruiters out there to discover athletes. This means when you attend showcases, tournaments or combines there is a higher likelihood representatives from the bigger programs will be there and you could get discovered. The downsides to these rules are that programs will start out with much larger recruiting classes because they can evaluate more athletes. That means a school that used to have a couple hundred athletes they were contacting, will be contacting a couple thousand. Because the rules on when coach’s can contact recruits didn’t change, it will still be your responsibility to contact coach’s before your Senior year and make sure that of the hundreds of athletes on their list, you show you are the most interested.
If you have questions please contact us on Facebook or Google+. You can also leave your questions in the comments below.
My son has been told he has a preferred walk-on.
With no letter to sign. How do we proceed? What
Should we expect from the school ? And when?
Thx
Terry M
You want to get everything in line with the admissions department and make sure he gets into the school and signed up for classes. Ask the coach for a contact within the athletic department and get all of his NCAA Eligibility Center paper work taken care of. It is a good idea for your son to email or call the coaches that recruited him from that school and always know from them, what he needs to be doing next.
skipped a year of playing still in community college how can i get seen for the next year.
It is possible. You are going to want to begin reaching out to college coaches and getting your highlight video out to them. Do you know what schools you want to play for? Start with a list of schools you want to contact and begin emailing and calling them. Good luck!
I am very confused on when an athlete can contact or be contacted by a coach. How is it some juniors are making verbal commitments in May when it says the coaches cannot contact you until June 1 of your junior year?
Contact is a tricky definition by the NCAA. Coaches are not allowed to proactively contact a recruit (call, email, text) but they can contact an athlete through their coach, talk to them at camp or even pick up the phone when they call. If a coach really wants to talk to an athlete, they contact the athletes coach, tell them to tell the athlete to call at a certain time and the coach picks up. Additionally, an athlete can go visit the coach at his school and meet with him at anytime.
The key is, if the coaches really want to talk to you, they will find a way.