A simply awesome recruiting story from the Blade

[Dayons_Den]

Stevens has also made friends with several Falcon supporters. He visited a BG message board a few days before the Toledo game and asked if he could stop by their tailgating site before the game.

"We had a good time talking about the other guys coming in and the program," Stevens said.


HOLY CRAP! Is Ryan Artullo trying to ruin BG? Please take my suggestion and don't make contact with Stevens again until he is at campus at BG!!!

OH MY GOD!!11 SOMEBODY CALL THE NCAA QUICK!!!!111

Ask BG's compliance director if it is a joking matter. I'm trying to be nice here by telling you guys not to have any contact with him until he is on campus.

Yeah my first thought was "somebody spit their coffee on their desk while reading this in an office at Perry Stadium East" I grimaced as I read this.

A can of soda or a bentley- the value is irrelevant anything you give to a potential recruit is a violation. Any contact from an alum is considered contact from a booster.

I hope someone from the athletic department gave a call to Ryan Autullo regarding the inclusion of this contact. Autullo is fresh out of BGSU and providing a neat angle on this story, but this is coming dangerously close to treading in foul ground.

[hammb]

Stevens has also made friends with several Falcon supporters. He visited a BG message board a few days before the Toledo game and asked if he could stop by their tailgating site before the game.

"We had a good time talking about the other guys coming in and the program," Stevens said.


HOLY CRAP! Is Ryan Artullo trying to ruin BG? Please take my suggestion and don't make contact with Stevens again until he is at campus at BG!!!

OH MY GOD!!11 SOMEBODY CALL THE NCAA QUICK!!!!111

Ask BG's compliance director if it is a joking matter. I'm trying to be nice here by telling you guys not to have any contact with him until he is on campus.

Yeah my first thought was "somebody spit their coffee on their desk while reading this in an office at Perry Stadium East" I grimaced as I read this.

A can of soda or a bentley- the value is irrelevant anything you give to a potential recruit is a violation. Any contact from an alum is considered contact from a booster.

I hope someone from the athletic department gave a call to Ryan Autullo regarding the inclusion of this contact. Autullo is fresh out of BGSU and providing a neat angle on this story, but this is coming dangerously close to treading in foul ground.

Our tailgates are public domain. We don't turn anyone down and give free food to anyone who stops by and wants to chat.

I don't think this is any different than if a recruit stopped by a sign that said "Free Hotdogs" and took one.

Of course I'm not the NCAA and not well versed with the rules. My understanding was always that these things are only a problem if you're giving special treatment to a recruit/player. If a kid stops by and partakes in stuff that is publicly available to anyone I don't think the NCAA would have a problem with it. Could be wrong though, they are pretty stupid. Worst case scenario is it's a Troy Smith type issue. Suspend him one game, and he then has to give us a brat, some pizza rolls, and some fish to pay us back.

[Flipper]

hammb does have a point...the offer to stop by the tailgate area is extened to anyone who stops by...even Snakeman and RF...I think the kid contacting us and dropping by a publically announced (yes, I do believe the postings on this board constitue a public announcement) as open to everyone event is different from a member of the forum contacting him and specifically inviting him to drop by and in the process excluding others.

I think...

but I do see RF's point...stuff like this is probably why coaches and administrators view the internet and forums like this as a bit of a headache

[theziggies]

Stevens has also made friends with several Falcon supporters. He visited a BG message board a few days before the Toledo game and asked if he could stop by their tailgating site before the game.

"We had a good time talking about the other guys coming in and the program," Stevens said.


HOLY CRAP! Is Ryan Artullo trying to ruin BG? Please take my suggestion and don't make contact with Stevens again until he is at campus at BG!!!

OH MY GOD!!11 SOMEBODY CALL THE NCAA QUICK!!!!111

Ask BG's compliance director if it is a joking matter. I'm trying to be nice here by telling you guys not to have any contact with him until he is on campus.

Yeah my first thought was "somebody spit their coffee on their desk while reading this in an office at Perry Stadium East" I grimaced as I read this.

A can of soda or a bentley- the value is irrelevant anything you give to a potential recruit is a violation. Any contact from an alum is considered contact from a booster.

I hope someone from the athletic department gave a call to Ryan Autullo regarding the inclusion of this contact. Autullo is fresh out of BGSU and providing a neat angle on this story, but this is coming dangerously close to treading in foul ground.

Ryan is just the messenger, he's not the one who broke the rules. He isn't supposed to pander to the BG athletic dept's wishes.

[Flipper]

Sid Sink is the guy in charge of compliance at BG...I just emailed him to get his input. Let's see what he has to say...

[TG1996]

Sid Sink is the guy in charge of compliance at BG...I just emailed him to get his input. Let's see what he has to say...

I bet he gives you the run-around.


HA!

[Dayons_Den]

We all know that there wasn't a big time violation here and I am not saying what was done was wrong, just pointing out that the NCAA may have a different take.

To the NCAA there is a difference between a "fee hot dog stand" at a mall and a pre-game tailgate party with alums, supporters and boosters where the discussion could have revolved around said recruits prospects at playing for BG or winning M.A.C. titles or even that afternoon's contest.

I also wasn't attacking Ryan's journalistic integrity, just his choice of how the snippet was included and how that context could be twisted.

[hammb]

Sid Sink is the guy in charge of compliance at BG...I just emailed him to get his input. Let's see what he has to say...

I'm anxious to hear what he says, please share with all of us, for future reference.

Doing some quick research what I can tell is:

We are not allowed to contact a recruit, they are allowed to contact us.

We are not allowed to provide them "benefits". Most sites talked about transportation, jobs, etc. I'm curious if food counts as a "benefit", especially considering we are non-discriminatory.

Once enrolled we are allowed to provide current student athletes occasional meals, but they cannot be in a restaurant. No mention how this applies to prospective recruits.

We are not allowed to attempt to sway a recruit towards one school, but we may discuss experiences/regulations/procedures.


This is just after doing a quick google, most of the results were documents put forth by varying athletic departments on the subject. I couldn't find the actually NCAA regulation, which would probably be impossible to decipher anyhow. From what I can gather it would come down to whether or not our offer of food to everyone, is considered a "benefit" when it is offered to a prospective student athlete. RocketFootball is probably right that we're best off not interacting with these recruits, but I'm really not sure that we did anything wrong. In the case of current athletes providing food is fine, but who knows we are dealing with the NCAA.

[rocketfootball]

NCAA Bylaw 13.01.5.1 applies to Division I athletics and became effective August 1, 1987. It reads as follows: "In Division I, representatives of an institution's athletic interests (as defined in 13.02.12) are prohibited from making in-person, on- or off-campus recruiting contacts, or written or telephone communications with a prospect or the prospect's family or legal guardians."

NOTE: "Written" can include communications via message boards.


Bylaw 13.02.12 defines a booster (which is a representative of an Institution's athletic interests). An abbreviated version of this regulation is set below: A "Booster" is any individual who is a member of the university's athletics booster club, has ever made any donations to the club or athletic department, is involved in any manner of recruiting prospects or in providing benefits (summer jobs) to enrolled student-athletes, or is otherwise involved in promoting the university's athletic's program."

NOTE: More importantly, if you have ever fallen into the "booster" classification, you will always fall into the classification and will be regarded as a booster, even if you are no longer technically donating money to the school.

Simply being a season ticket holder with a donation gift as part of the requirement to be a season ticket holder puts you in the "booster" category in the eyes of the NCAA.

[hammb]

We all know that there wasn't a big time violation here and I am not saying what was done was wrong, just pointing out that the NCAA may have a different take.

To the NCAA there is a difference between a "fee hot dog stand" at a mall and a pre-game tailgate party with alums, supporters and boosters where the discussion could have revolved around said recruits prospects at playing for BG or winning M.A.C. titles or even that afternoon's contest.

I also wasn't attacking Ryan's journalistic integrity, just his choice of how the snippet was included and how that context could be twisted.

Most of the stuff I found says you are not allowed to attempt to sway a recruit one way or the other.

In Marc's case he was already committed to BG and the conversation was a lot more of "Welcome to the Falcon Family" than it was "You should come here, because."

Like you said though, dealing with the NCAA who knows. It seems a shame that we would have to close off our tailgate parties to any potential recruit and his family, but in the future, we may want to go that route.

[rocketfootball]

Once enrolled we are allowed to provide current student athletes occasional meals, but they cannot be in a restaurant. No mention how this applies to prospective recruits.

The thing here is that you have to be fair to all, meaning if you offer food to a student-athlete on the football team you have to offer it to all student-athletes on the football team. A few fans at UT inquired about this a few years ago and wanted to bring pizza after an August practice. After checking with compliance it was determined that enough pizzas would have to be brought to practice to provide for the entire team, so as to not single out one person.



As for the "potential recruit" thing. The safety thing to do so you don't go in the gray area is to not talk to a potential recruit about Bowling Green at all.

[hammb]

NCAA Bylaw 13.01.5.1 applies to Division I athletics and became effective August 1, 1987. It reads as follows: "In Division I, representatives of an institution's athletic interests (as defined in 13.02.12) are prohibited from making in-person, on- or off-campus recruiting contacts, or written or telephone communications with a prospect or the prospect's family or legal guardians."

NOTE: "Written" can include communications via message boards.

I don't think any of us would deny the fact that we're all boosters, so we'll take that as it is.

However, this part states that we are prohibited from making contact with the recruit. I'm pretty sure that if you look further you'll find that the recruit is to initiate contact to the boosters.

As I said, this is definitely a grey area, and I think we're probably best off in the future telling any recruits that post here to avoid this place and avoid our tailgate parties, just to be safe.

[rocketfootball]

Most of the stuff I found says you are not allowed to attempt to sway a recruit one way or the other.

In Marc's case he was already committed to BG and the conversation was a lot more of "Welcome to the Falcon Family" than it was "You should come here, because."

Like you said though, dealing with the NCAA who knows. It seems a shame that we would have to close off our tailgate parties to any potential recruit and his family, but in the future, we may want to go that route.

Not trying to be rude here or anything, but remember that the NCAA does not recognize verbal commitments......only signed LOI's. Despite having verbal commitments from these kids, the BG coaches are constantly in contact with them trying to keep them committed. And other schools are likely to contact them to try and get them to change their commitment.

[h2oville rocket]

Sid Sink is the guy in charge of compliance at BG...I just emailed him to get his input. Let's see what he has to say...

I bet he gives you the run-around.


HA!

I suspect its a hurdle he can clear.

[h2oville rocket]

In an effort to be helpful I contacted the NCAA directly, gave them the details and asked if this would constitute a violation. They said it sounded particularly heinous but that all their investigators were busy with Scootergate, trying to determine what team, exactly, Nick Saban is coaching and their ongoing look into Karl's shocking, SHOCKING I say, show of disrespect to RWT on the MACBBs.

They will eventually look into this matter but said any punishment would probably have to be visited on this young man's grandchildren as they would be the only ones having any eligibility remaining by the time the NCAA gets around to this.

The fact that the only person available to take my call was a night janitor working OT lends credence to what he told me. Sorry I couldn't get it cleared up anymore.