Athletics set to vote to keep text-message ban

Delegates from NCAA Division I schools will meet in Nashville, Tenn., next month to decide the fate of three pieces of legislation, including one that would overturn the much-discussed ban on text-messaging high-school recruits.

The ban, put into effect Aug. 1 after the NCAA Board of Directors approved it in April, prevents coaches from text-messaging high-school recruits based on the process's intrusiveness and high cost for recruits in the form of text-messaging bills.

"We strongly believe that this is something that affects student-athletes' well-being," said Allie Houseal, the ACC's Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee representative and member of the Terps water polo team. The committee pushed for the ban at last year's convention.

But based on 34 override requests from various university and conference officials, the ban will be subject to an override vote on Jan. 12 at NCAA's annual convention.

"A year later, the recruiting process still exists - high-school athletes are still signing national letters of intent," Houseal said, adding that members of this campus's SAAC agreed with her stance at a November meeting. "So why bring it back?"

Athletics Department administration officials at this university agree with the SAAC's view.

"We are in favor of prohibiting text-messaging," said Dan Trump, associate athletics director in charge of compliance. "What we've communicated with our coaches is [text-messaging] is done until further notice."

Trump will accompany criminology and criminal justice professor Charles Wellford, the chair of the university's athletic council, to the convention, where Wellford will give the university's vote against overriding the ban.

"Our position has been that we're opposed to the override," Wellford said. "We think that there are sufficient opportunities currently for coaches and prospective student athletes to communicate."

Football coach Ralph Friedgen said that while he has heard text-messaging was a problem for some recruits, he is undecided on the issue.

"I could go either way with it," said Friedgen, adding that he thinks the current ban is difficult for the NCAA to enforce. "I guess some of the bills are pretty high for recruit., I've had parents tell me that."

It would take five-eighths of the more than 300 Division I schools to vote in favor of the override and bring text messaging back to the recruiting scene.

"I don't think it's going to happen," said Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, an official with the Ivy League, the conference that proposed the ban, on whether it would be overridden. "I'd be surprised, but there's always a chance."

Wellford will also oppose the other two override votes at the convention. One would restrict golf coaches from changing their team's schedules so their golfers would miss less class time, and the other would reject limits on the roster size of baseball teams.

akrautdbk@gmail.com