The NCAA Needs To Tighten It's Rules Regarding Facebook Contact

The NCAA needs to decide what is and isn't okay where Facebook is concerned. According to Kyle Veazey of the ClarionLedger.com, Ole Miss may be in line for a "secondary" recruiting violation after assistant coach, Chris Vaughn, commented on the public wall of Mississippi State commit, Jermaine Whitehead—the NCAA does not allow this.

However, here's the kicker:

“Our members are concerned about the level of intrusion in a young person’s life related to recruiting, and the celebrity culture that can develop around the recruitment process, which is why limits are placed on how often coaches can contact recruits,” NCAA spokesperson Stacey Osburn said. (ClarionLedger.com, 6/26/10).

Huh?

Let me explain my perplexed state, the NCAA does allow a coach to send private messages to a potential prospect. How is that not intrusion? After all, the NCAA would have zero knowledge of what's said or sent in that message.

So a coach can decide to compile a video presentation featuring an ESPN highlight reel of the prospect's future accomplishments and opportunities if he chose to sign with their school, link that video as a part of the private message, and the NCAA would have no idea—how is that okay?

Of course, one might say that the same can be done in a recruits living room or on their official visit—the NCAA won't be present in those situations either.

That's a point well-taken but as stated above, limits are imposed on the amount of contact a program can make with a potential recruit. Visits to the home and/or the school are set in advance. There are specific guidelines one fact-to face contact and telephone calls. This is not the same thing as being allowed to send a private message on a social medium.

Social mediums provide the added bonus of being able to attach video messages that can, indirectly, be considered face-to-face contact. A coach could video himself talking one-to-one with a recruit and no one would be the wiser—including the NCAA.

Again...I am perplexed.

A "secondary violation" amounts to nothing so Ole Miss is likely willing to take a calculated risk if it nets them a player—assuming that they truly did anything at all. If nothing else, Facebook has proven to be a place where you can be anyone you wish to be—identities are rarely verified unless a barrage of complaints are levied against a particular user. So this whole thing could be a whole lot of nothing.

If not, the NCAA needs to consider the legitimacy of this rule altogether because at the simplest level it doesn't make a lick of sense.