I'm not the most well versed in "legalese" and I certainly wont claim to be. However, I had a sudden realization (or more like speculation) and I was wondering if any of my readers could help me out with nailing it all down. I'll start from the beginning.I like to keep up on my Michigan football news during the off season by reading the articles that pop up on my chatsports.com news feed. I came across a couple of articles that peaked my interest over the past few days and I put two and two together.
The first was an article about how "creepers" are Internet stalking our prospective Michigan Men. Not only are they creepy, they may be committing a recruiting violation. I consulted this to see for myself.
- You are not eligible if anyone from your institution, other than an authorized staff member, contacted you, your relatives or your legal guardian in person, on or off your institution's campus to recruit you. You also are not eligible if you received recruiting letters or telephone calls from any representative of your institution's athletics interests. [Bylaw 13.1.2.1]
So now I was wondering what the NCAA considered a "representative of your institution's athletic interests". I found my answer here.
A "representative of the institution's athletics interests" is an individual who is known (or who should have been known) by a member of the insitution's executive or athletics administration to: (c) Be assisting or to have been requested (by the athletics department staff) to assist in the recruitment of prospects;
What's interesting in all of this is how these Bylaws are essentially begging the question. A booster is somebody who calls prospects to recruit them. It is against the rules to receive calls from boosters. Therefore, it is against the rules to receive calls from people who are calling you. Do you see how this can become very absurd very quickly? And the NCAA expects high school students to understand this...
Anyway, a day or so later I stumbled upon an article about Shane Morris by one of my favorite sports writers, Angelique. It's about how active Shane is as Michigan's first commit of the 2013 class and a member of the Michigan football family. He seams like a really strong character kid that I have no doubts will succeed here. However, while reading the article, a few key quotes jumped out at me almost instantaneously. One of these moments is when Mr. Morris said this.
I'm definitely recruiting all the time. We want to win national championships at Michigan and we're going to need the best players in the nation to do that.
I understand his reasoning behin
d wanting to get the best players in the country. He's a quarterback after all and quarterbacks need skilled athletes around them to win championships. Ask Tom Brady about that after losing to the Giants in this year's Superbowl. I think you all can see my concerns though. Is this legal? I honestly don't know and that's why I am writing this article. Seeing as Shane Morris' recruiting practices are not only well known, but attracting media attention, this is probably a non-issue. However, I read the NCAA Bylaws and then look at what is happening and it's not adding up.
d wanting to get the best players in the country. He's a quarterback after all and quarterbacks need skilled athletes around them to win championships. Ask Tom Brady about that after losing to the Giants in this year's Superbowl. I think you all can see my concerns though. Is this legal? I honestly don't know and that's why I am writing this article. Seeing as Shane Morris' recruiting practices are not only well known, but attracting media attention, this is probably a non-issue. However, I read the NCAA Bylaws and then look at what is happening and it's not adding up.I know this is probably the last thing Michigan fans want to talk about after the Rich Rod stretching debacle but I am truly concerned, and it would be good to nip anything negative in the bud before Drew Sharp gets hold of it and turns it into a story about how Michigan is funneling funds through Shane Morris to recruit high profile recruits away from other Big 10 schools... or something else equally absurd as the claims he made only a few years ago.
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