Recruiting

• General principles
• Definitions and applications
• Contacts and evaluations
• Offers and inducements
• Admissions and graduation data
• Recruiting materials
• Entertainment
• Transportation
• Official paid visits
• Official nonpaid visists
• Entertainment reimbursment and employment
• Letters of intent and financial aid agreements
• Publicity tryouts
• Sports camps and clinics
• High school all-star games
• Use of recruiting funds


GENERAL PRINCIPLES | back to top
Entertainment
An institution may provide entertainment to a scale comparable to that of normal student life and not excessive in nature to a prospect and his/her family or spouse. Entertainment is limited to the institution’s campus (or, on an official visit, within 30 miles of the institution’s campus).

Institutional responsibility in recruitment
An institution or its representative shall not recruit a prospect except as permitted by the NCAA, the institution and the member conference, if any.

Off-campus recruiting
In-person, off-campus recruiting is limited to athletic department staff members, and limitations may be placed on the number of staff members who are permitted to recruit off-campus.

Recruiting by representatives of athletic interests
Representatives of an institution’s athletic interests (as defined in bylaw 13.02.10) are prohibited from making in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts or telephone calls with a prospect or the prospect’s relatives or legal guardians. On-campus contact is permitted, as are written communications. Recruiting contacts by representatives during a prospect’s official visit are confined to campus and may not extend a 30-mile radius permitted institutional staff members (see also bylaw 13.1.3.4.2).

Time periods for telephone calls and contacts
Telephone calls or in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts shall not be made with a prospect or prospect’s relatives or legal guardians before June 15 immediately preceding the prospect’s senior year in high school. In football and basketball, such contacts are confined to specific contact periods. In all sports, time periods are established during which no on-or of-campus contacts are permitted (see bylaw 30.11)


DEFINITIONS AND APPLICATIONS | back to top
Competition site
The facility in which athletics competition is actually conducted, including any dressing room or meeting facility used in conjunction with the competition (13.02.1).

Contact
A contact is any face-to-face encounter between a prospect or the prospects parents, relatives or legal guardian(s) and an institutional staff member or athletics representative during which any dialogue occurs in excess of an exchange or greeting. Any such face-to-face encounter that is prearranged or that takes place on the grounds of the prospect’s educational institution or at the site of organized competition or practice involving the prospect or the prospect’s high school, preparatory school, two-year college or all-star team shall be considered a contact, regardless of the conversation that occurs (13.02.2).

Contact period
The period of time when it is permissible for authorized athletic department staff members to make in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts and evaluations (13.02.3.1).

Evaluation period
The period of time when it is permissible for authorized athletic department staff members to be involved in off-campus activities designed to asses the academic qualifications and playing ability of prospects. No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts shall be made with the prospect during an evaluation period (13.02.3.2).

Quiet period
The period of time when it is permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts only on the member institution’s campus. No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts or evaluations may be made during the quiet period (13.02.3.3).

Dead period
The period of time when it is not permissible to make in-person recruiting contacts or evaluations on or off the member institution’s campus or to permit official or unofficial visits by prospects to the institution’s campus. The provision of complimentary admissions to a prospect during a dead period is prohibited, except as provided in Bylaw 13.8.2.5 for a prospect who visits an institution as part of a group. During such a dead period, a coaching staff member may not serve as a speaker at or attend a meeting or banquet at which prospects are in attendance, except as provided in Bylaw 13.1.9, and may not visit the prospects’ educational institutions. It remains permissible, however, for an institutional staff member to write or telephone prospects during such a dead period (13.02.3.4).

Enrolled student-athlete
Tan enrolled student-athlete is an individual whose enrollment was solicited by a member of the athletic staff or other representatives of the athletic department’s interest with a view toward the student’s ultimate participation in the intercollegiate athletics program. Any other student becomes a student-athlete only when the student reports for an intercollegiate squad that is under the jurisdiction of the athletic department (13.02.4).
Permissible recruitment activities for enrolled student-athletes

(a) Off-campus contacts – Off-campus, in-person recruiting contacts that are unavoidable incidental contacts between enrolled student-athletes (or other enrolled students) and a prospect are permissible if such contacts do not occur at the direction of a coaching staff member.
(b) Telephone contact – It is permissible for an enrolled student-athlete to receive telephone calls made at the expense of a prospect after July 1 after the completion of the prospect’s junior year in high school. Telephone calls made by enrolled students in accordance with an institution’s regular admissions program directed at all prospective students shall be permissible.
(c) Written correspondence – It is permissible for an enrolled student-athlete to engage in written correspondence, provided it is not done at the direction and/or expense of the member institution.
(d) Unavoidable incidental contact – If unavoidable incidental contact occurs between a student-athlete and a prospect (even at the prospect’s high school), such contact is permissible, provided the institution had no prior knowledge of the occurrence of the contact.
(e) Official visits – An enrolled student-athlete may participate as an enrolled student host during a prospect’s official visit to the institution’s campus. As a student host a student-athlete may receive the following:
1.) A maximum of $30 for each day of the visit to cover all actual costs of entertaining the prospect (and the prospect’s parents, legal guardians or spouse), excluding the costs of meals and admission to campus athletic events. These funds may not be used for the purchase of souvenirs such as T-shirts or other institutional mementos. It is permissible to provide the student host with an additional $15 per day for each additional prospect the host entertains.
In the event that several students host a prospect, the $30 per day entertainment may be utilized to cover the actual and necessary expenses incurred by the prospect and all hosts. Only one student per prospect may be provided a free meal, if restaurant facilities are used;
2.) A complimentary meal, provided the student host is accompanying the prospect during the prospect’s official visit; and
3.) A complimentary admission to a campus athletic event, provided the admission is used to accompany a prospect to that event during the prospect’s official visit.
(f) Unofficial visits – A prospect on an unofficial visit may stay in an enrolled student-athlete’s dormitory room, provided the prospect pays the regular institutional rate for such lodging.