NCAA Recruiting - Obligation to Report?

Submitted by profitgoblue on

This is a random question for you NCAA recruiting experts out there:

I got to thinking about the situation where a recruit tries to commit to a school that has learned something negative in their research on the kid and thus refuses to accept the committment.

QUERY: If a school uncovers something really significant that does not appear on a criminal record (I can't think of a good example), does that school have an obligation to inform other schools about this fact? For example, if Notre Dame is recruiting a kid and finds out that he did something that is maybe not criminal but extremely immoral or whatever, do they have some sort of obligation to inform Michigan or some other school they know is recruiting him?

The answer is likely found in the NCAA Bylaws as it is really a legal "duty to report" question. I'm just curious if anyone knows off the top of their heads. Thanks in advance.

 

jshclhn

August 5th, 2011 at 2:54 PM ^

If anything, I would think the responsibility would more likely lie with reporting it to the NCAA.  If the NCAA wants to let other schools know, so be it. 

I suppose it's more of a moral issue if another coach comes up to you and asks you point blank why you didn't take a kid, is there something wrong that I should know about?

trueblueintexas

August 5th, 2011 at 4:02 PM ^

Obviously it's speculation, but I agree this answers the question.  i.e. a coach is not allowed to speak about recruits.

One other point, I don't see how there could be any obligation under NCAA rules, becuase at this point, the reruited targeted has absolutely no tie to the NCAA in any form.  Thus, how could a coach be responsible for reporting on something outside the NCAA purview?

jmblue

August 5th, 2011 at 4:48 PM ^

I don't think so, especially if you're talking about things that might be unethical but not illegal.  That's getting into subjective territory.   What might be a dealbreaker for one school might be tolerable for another. 

  

vbnautilus

August 5th, 2011 at 4:53 PM ^

I think it would be unethical to communicate to other programs, and may even be against some rules.  

There is a privacy concern here: if you find something out about a recruit, depending on how you learn it, it may be inappropriate to spread around. 

Furthermore, if schools were allowed to do this is it would be a major negative recruiting problem;  you could spread rumors about something negative in their background to reduce interest from other schools. 

Not to mention that what Notre Dame considers a significant moral transgression may not be to Alabama. 

I think there is probably little to no communication about recruits between programs.

profitgoblue

August 5th, 2011 at 4:58 PM ^

I'm almost positive you're right.  As I was thinking about it, I started trying to equate it to a therapist's duty to inform law enforcement if a patient is threatening future illegal actions.  Obviously a completely different situation, but I could see it being helpful if programs communicated with each other about matters that reached a certain "serious" level.  But you're totally right - it would violate all kinds of privacy concerns, especially since many of these kids are legal minors.

 

jmblue

August 5th, 2011 at 5:04 PM ^

Frankly, given the dog-eat-dog nature of recruiting, I'd think there are some coaches out there that have no desire to share damning information about recruits. They probably figure it benefits them to have their rivals waste their time and energy on a kid who won't make it to campus. 

It's not exactly the same thing, but there are supposedly some schools out there that encourage their commitments to keep silent as long as possible, so that other schools will waste time on them.  It's a vicious business.