It's A Text Mess: NCAA Slow To Keep Pace with New Communications
By Paul Doyle, Hartford Courant

It could appear on his cellphone screen any time of any day. The words may have been different, but the message was always the same. "How do you respond to someone just sending you a random message telling you how good you are?" Bristol Central senior Aaron Hernandez said.

Hernandez, the most prized football recruit in the state, received text messages on his cellphone from some of the biggest college programs in the country – Notre Dame, Penn State and Florida. In the early stages of his recruitment, he gave his cellphone number to schools and soon the messages came from all over the country…There was a time when coaches would fawn over recruits with postcards and letters. But the 21st century teenager is wired and the recruiting game has followed the technology. Never mind snail mail, even e-mail is too slow – Hernandez says he barely checks his e-mail. Today's kids are all about instant messaging, text messaging and their MySpace page. And there are more options coming as technology evolves. So monitoring electronic contact between coaches and recruits in all sports will always be difficult to control.

NCAA rules, though, are steeped in the pre-Internet age, and the governing body of college athletics can be slow to institute change. The Ivy League, having heard many complaints from recruits who have been deluged with text messages, wants the NCAA to ban all text messaging and instant messaging between coaches and recruits. And the league hopes that language can be put in to anticipate the next wave of technology. "We want to get the conversation going at the national level," said Ivy League senior associate director Carolyn Campbell-McGovern (1995 NACWAA/HERS and 2003 Executive Institute graduate), who crafted the proposal. "Eliminating it entirely may not be realistic, but that's the most extreme measure, and you can always cut back from there."

To view full article please click here.