NCAA sends clear message: It has no clue

Aug. 10, 2007

By Gary Parrish
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer


The NCAA board of directors met Thursday to discuss the ban on text messaging.

Many thought they would overturn it.

They didn't.

Kerry Keating is at the forefront of technology among college coaches. "It's so disappointing," said Santa Clara's Kerry Keating, a former UCLA assistant recognized as one of the most technologically advanced coaches in the nation. "This ban doesn't make any sense."

No, it doesn't.

Which is why it actually makes perfect sense.

We are, after all, talking about the NCAA here, an organization that rarely specializes in sense-making. In fairness I'm confident the folks on the board of directors are trying to do the right thing. It's just that they so clearly have no idea what the right thing is because there is not a reasonable explanation for why text messaging between coaches and recruits should be banned.

Trust me, I've thought about it.

And I've researched it and researched it more.

I even wrote about it last April before the ban was put into place. And while I'm not here to bore you with the details again -- just click here to read the original column and you'll get the point -- I would like to address one of the concerns presented by those against text messaging that I did not address in April, specifically how prospects were receiving text messages in the middle of class.

To be clear, receiving text messages in class is inappropriate.

On that much we agree.

But why should the NCAA have to legislate that?

High school students receiving text messages in class isn't a recruiting problem, it's a teacher/parent problem that can be eliminated by a rule no different than the traditional rules that ban students from chewing gum in class or running in the halls. If a student -- whether he's a high-major basketball prospect or a dude in the marching band -- is caught sending or receiving text messages in class, then the school can suspend him. Do that once and the student will learn not to have his phone on in class, rendering it impossible to receive text messages in class regardless of when coaches send them.

Just like that, problem solved.

"It's pretty simple, isn't it?" said Iowa State assistant T.J. Otzelberger. "The ban is just ridiculous."

Yet apparently here to stay, at least until January. That's when the topic will be revisited at the NCAA's annual convention. The problem for those who favor text messaging as a recruiting tool -- which is, best I can tell, coaches under 40 -- is that nothing is likely to happen until the people legislating the issue -- which is, best I can tell, administrators over 50 -- have a better understanding of what text messaging truly involves and how it really works.

At some point they must realize it's not that expensive. Or that intrusive. And allowing coaches to send text messages that can be deleted by a recruit in less than two seconds beats the hell out of coaches calling recruits' home phones all night every night or sending one piece of mail after another until big piles of envelopes develop in living rooms across America.

"There are still a lot of guys making this decision who do not understand what a text message is," Keating said. "They wouldn't even know what an e-mail was if it wasn't for their secretaries."

In that case, let's put secretaries in charge of making recruiting rules.

They're not as experienced in the process as their bosses, I know.

But it's hard to imagine them doing any worse.

This feature was published on CBS SportsLine on August 10