Roundtree - Minor NCAA violation. Good rule?

Submitted by TheGhostofYost on

Sorry if this is posted below and I missed it, but apparently Roy and Demens tweeted to Mccray - an NCAA no-no as athletes affiliated with an institution cannot contact unsigned commits through social media.  Is this a good rule?

TheGhostofYost

March 6th, 2012 at 11:31 PM ^

That seems to be correct.  When he signs, he becomes affiliated with the university, and cannot comment on prospective atheletes through social media.  At least that's how I understand it.

Koyote

March 6th, 2012 at 11:30 PM ^

Does it matter who initiated the contact and if they had a prior relationship? I mean Roundtree and McCray both went to the same school, so it is at least possible they knew each other.

JonSnow54

March 6th, 2012 at 11:32 PM ^

I'm wondering this, too.  What if you had a teammate a year above you go to the school?  He can no longer tweet/FB you?  Or what if you have an older brother at a school....he can't tweet or FB you either?  If that is the case, that is an incredibly stupid rule.

Does the rule apply to phone calls and texts as well?  If they can call/text each other, but not tweet/FB, that's another reason it seems like a bad/inconsistant rule.

Feat of Clay

March 7th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^

Don't be ridiculous; after you submit all Christmas and birthday gifts (along with receipts) to the NCAA for clearance, you can go ahead and celebrate the holidays normally.  And by normally I mean with your school's compliance office filming the entire thing for later submission.  No biggie.

TheGhostofYost

March 6th, 2012 at 11:32 PM ^

"NCAA rules do not allow comments about possible recruits on an institution’s social media page or a page belonging to someone affiliated with the institution. In addition, these pages cannot feature photos of prospects and messages cannot be sent to recruits using these social media technologies other than through their e-mail function."

Yeoman

March 8th, 2012 at 12:43 PM ^

is that one is public and the other is not.

It's not clear to me yet why that's a critical difference--I haven't thought through what would likely happen if they allowed this sort of thing--but it's clear that what they're trying to avoid is athletes doing public recruiting PR for their schools, not communicating privately with recruits.

justingoblue

March 6th, 2012 at 11:34 PM ^

This happened at ND last week and with Nick Toon last year. The NCAA will send a stern sounding letter that the players probably have to read and sign, and everyone will go about their business.

FTR, I think it's a dumb rule if it doesn't account for prior relationships. Hypothetically, what if this guy was Roundtree's little brother's best friend and had gone on family vacations with the Roundtrees when Roy was eight? That doesn't seem fair for him to have to cut ties while he's being recruited.

dothepose

March 6th, 2012 at 11:44 PM ^

I'm pretty sure McCray contacted Demens first on Twitter. What is he suppose to do, not talk to him?

I'm surprised this hasnt happened more often, I mean Twitter is so easy to just talk to anyone. Desmond Howard once replied to one of my tweets, that should be a social media violation for somoene so awesome acknowleding I exist.

M-Wolverine

March 6th, 2012 at 11:43 PM ^

Blue in South Bend

Joined: 08/15/2009
MGoPoints: 25504
Roundtree commits NCAA violation via tweet? (per chatsports.com)

a) no ChatSports.

b) I don't think he understands the rules in question.

TheGhostofYost

March 7th, 2012 at 12:00 AM ^

The original article did not mention Demens, because that didn't happen until about two hours ago.  I don't see how that is not relevant.   I'll fully admit I don't know the rules perfectly, but it's not too hard to see that it's a possible violation when the compliance department is notified. 

UMxWolverines

March 7th, 2012 at 12:14 AM ^

Dumb rule because a player can just as easily text them as facebook or tweet. The NCAA really needs to sit down and get some consistency with, well, everything. Let's create a piss storm about North Dakota's "offensive" mascot and god forbid a player contact a recruit, but let's let ohio, oregon, and the entire sec sans vanderbilt get away with whatever.

Happy birthday roy by the way

kyeblue

March 7th, 2012 at 12:21 AM ^

does this mean once a player enrolled in college, he has to de-friend with all his high school teammates who are still in high school and all potentially a recruit. 

Blueisgood

March 7th, 2012 at 12:28 AM ^

You can't do this, but they NCAA doesn't require a drug policy for athletes. When I heard the drug policy thing today I couldn't believe that.

UMichYank11

March 7th, 2012 at 9:30 AM ^

Well actually, rules like this are common. If say you have a safety manual that says you have to be tied off for fall protection issues at a height of 4 feet when OSHA says it is 6 feet (talking construction regulations 1926) then you have to tie off at 4 and OSHA can cite you and fine you for violating that safety manual.

You can always make rules more strict going down the chain of command but you can not make them more lax than the highest command.

/safety nerd

Section 1

March 7th, 2012 at 11:23 AM ^

... of all of the Twitter-related problems.  NCAA bylaw violations; HIPAA violations and other breaches of team confidences on injuries, inappropriate racial and gender language, simply dumb comments, etc., etc.

If you don't mind, I'd like to have it broken down by team, individual, date, and type of offensive speech.  It would be helpful to also have a tab breaking things down by which NCAA bylaw is violated, referencing the bylaw by number.

If you can have it on my desk by Monday, I'd appreciate it.

BiSB

March 7th, 2012 at 7:53 AM ^

The NCAA has a pre-existing relationship exception. If they knew each other before McCray became a potential recruit (yeah, go ahead an try to draw THAT line, philosophers), then he's fine. He also didn't publicize a visit like Eifert did.

As for Demens... I dunno. Responding to a contact seems logically okay, but this is the NCAA. Your logic has no place here.

burtcomma

March 7th, 2012 at 9:30 AM ^

perfect example of a bureacracy run amok with rules and lawyers.  Way too many rules that are ignorant and fly specks, like the social media rule, while they fail to concentrate on the big ones (you know, like someone giving Cam Newton's dad a check, or someone at Oregon paying a recruiting service $25K for information, etc).

VermontMichiganFan

March 7th, 2012 at 9:54 AM ^

Whether or not the rule is fair/makes sense/modern enough/realistic why is it being broken?

It is the rule- people know the rule.

Yeah it a small rule to break- but how are the players allowed to do this?  It seems like all the rules need to be made very clear to all players so that we have no issues with breaking rules.

This is so avoidable....

maizenbluenc

March 7th, 2012 at 2:52 PM ^

there are rules that say you can email someone, but you can't tweet them, you can have bagels, but not cream cheese, or you can be a GA, but you can't return footballs a quarteback has thrown and you can only attend coaches meetings and film session under specific circumstances.

Once your write rules to that level of detail, you will have a rule "book" that is so thick and convoluted that no one really knows what all the rules are - especially the little ones like this one.

bronxblue

March 7th, 2012 at 10:51 AM ^

Such a dumb rule - we are talking about 21-year-olds tweeting to 17-year-old future teammates.  I get the prohibition/restrictions in the corporate world, but this seems like an overreaction to the texting issues that coaches used to get into.  Ah well, I'm sure Rosenberg is already furiously wan...writing an article about how this is RR's fault, somehow.

Tater

March 7th, 2012 at 10:53 AM ^

Roundtree should have followed the rule.  I would imagine that he and Brady Hoke will have a stimulating conversation about it.  I'm in favor of tossing 95 percent of the NCAA rulebook, but you have to follow the rules that are there or someone gets an unfair advantage.

I just hope that the NCAA doesn't close the rather cool loophole that Shane Morris has been using to recruit his classmates.