Rice athletic recruiting conforms to NCAA policy
Prospective student-athletes will sign behavior contracts before they are allowed to visit Rice this year. A new policy for athletic recruiting will govern prospective student-athletes’ behavior while visiting campus.
New NCAA rules regarding the conduct and treatment of prospective student-athletes prompted the Athletic Department to set clearer standards for the behavior of athletic recruits and their hosts but will have little impact on Rice’s general recruiting techniques, Athletic Director Bobby May (Will Rice ‘65) said. The rule changes were passed by the NCAA Division I Board of Directors Aug. 5 and will take effect for the 2004-‘05 recruitment year.
One new rule requires that institutions create policies applicable to student-athlete recruits, hosts and coaches that prohibit the use of alcohol, sex and gambling during recruiting visits. A school’s policy must be on file with its conference office before the school can bring prospective student-athletes on campus for recruiting visits this academic year. May said Rice has filed a preliminary policy with the Western Athletic Conference office and will be able to host recruits as it works to revise the policy.
“You cannot bring anyone on campus until that policy is on file with the conference office, so in order not to hamstring our coaches in the short-term, we have been working on our policy for some months with our legal department,” May said. “We submitted a preliminary draft of a policy to the conference office for their initial approval and also [for] scrutiny and tweaking to see if there needed to be anything added or subtracted.”
As part of its policy, Rice will require student-athlete recruits and their hosts to sign a contract pledging to avoid alcohol, drugs and inappropriate sexual behavior during recruiting visits. The purpose of the contract is to maintain the integrity of the recruiting process, May said.
“What [the NCAA is] asking us to do … is to be sure kids are here for the right reasons and they conduct themselves appropriately and benefit from visiting campus,” May said.
Rice’s policy will be reviewed by the WAC and the Athletic Department this semester before it is given to President David Leebron for final approval in December, May said.
Other new NCAA rules focus on reducing lavish treatment of recruits during campus visits. They prohibit the use of charter planes, special vehicles, lodging, food or campus tours, and personalized jerseys, scoreboard presentations or game-day simulations.
May said these changes will have little impact on Rice’s recruitment strategies.
“We weren’t doing those things anyway, so it doesn’t really change anything here,” May said. “We weren’t flying people in on private planes or anything.”
The NCAA rule changes were drafted by a task force created in February in response to recent allegations regarding recruiting practices at Division I schools. Recruiting practices at the University of Colorado at Boulder came under particular scrutiny in December after at least eight women said they were raped by Colorado football players or recruits since 1997.
Rice recruiting practices for student-athletes also received media attention this past year. In February, a spokesperson for Hardbodies Entertainment, Inc. was quoted in the Denver Rocky Mountain News naming Rice as one of several schools where student-athletes hired strippers from the company to perform at parties for recruits. Hardbodies later retracted the claim that the students involved were definitely student-athletes. At the time, May said the Athletic Department had no knowledge of such activities and does not condone them.
In addition, a football recruit and three football players were involved in an alleged sexual assault against a female student in December. A Harris County grand jury decided not enough evidence existed for the District Attorney’s office to file charges in the case. The students were rusticated but are currently attending football team practices.
Senior Associate Athletic Director Steve Moniaci said the events at Rice last year were not a major catalyst for the new NCAA guidelines.
“This wasn’t just a Rice deal,” Moniaci said. “This was a national deal. Had nothing happened here at all last year, [the NCAA rule changes] still would have happened.”
Head Football Coach Ken Hatfield said he strongly supports Rice’s new recruitment policy.
“I think it’s going to be wholesome,” Hatfield said. “It’s going to be good for everybody concerned.”
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