The NCAA Working Group that was in charge of the massive deregulation approved by the NCAA earlier this year has heard the feedback from its stakeholders and suspended, at least, two of the proposed regulations.
Read more about the original set of proposals here.
“The working group has taken seriously its commitment to listen and respond to the membership throughout this process,” said Tulsa President Steadman Upham, co-chair of the Rules Working Group. “We understand that reasonable minds differ on some of these challenging issues, and we hope that further discussion will benefit our student-athletes and their institutions. We believe that, with the help of the membership, we can reach an appropriate outcome.”
The board is now recommending, per a release, that:
- Prop. No. RWG-11-2, which eliminated the definition of recruiting coordination functions that must be performed only be a head or assistant coach, be suspended until appropriate modifications can be made. The concept will be considered as the membership ponders its approach to non-coaching personnel.
- Prop. No. RWG-13-5-A, which eliminated restrictions on printed materials sent to prospects other than general correspondence, be suspended to allow for a broader discussion of the rule.
The release also said that though they had heard issue with RWG-13-3 that expanded the period during which coaches are allowed unlimited calls for, but felt that by reigning-in rule 11-2 will scale back on the number of different people who are allowed to call a recruit, and therefore should help with those concerns. They did, however, commit to reviewing the rule two years after implementation, just as with all of the new rules proposals.
The board reconsidered after what they said were coaches and administrators who “expressed concerns deregulation in this area might lead to a recruiting arms race that will overwhelm prospects, college coaches and athletics department budgets.”
While they noted that most of the concerns were specifically regarding football, they also acknowledged that other sports could run into the same issues.
Their conclusion of the working group was similar to the one that many of our readers came to as well. They felt there was a threat of abuse of these new rules, especially with non-coaching employees being able to call recruits, but that ultimately, coaches who overwhelmed prospects would be hurt by it more-times-than-not in the long haul.
The following question recently came up in a discussion, namely that with the proposed “tightening of 11-2” is Rule Change 13-3 on track to be implemented this summer? Or does the May 17th override vote apply to all of the proposed changes, including 13-3?
I welcome clarification from the experts here….thanks
newswim, without going back to look at exactly what Rule Change 13-3 is, the only rules that are being reconsidered right now are the very specific ones listed above. Any of the other changes that happened will still go into effect.
If that doesn’t answer your question, let me know and I’ll look at it in more detail!
13.3 moved up the contact period from July 1st after completion of the junior year to August 1st after completion of the sophomore year…much appreciated and I understand with NCAAs coming up this might not be a priority right now.
Ahh ok gotcha. They’ve still not made any comment on that, so that one is not in effect as far as I’ve seen. Will keep watching and asking, however.