NCAA Watching Recruiters Abuse of Technology

It seems the days of sport recruiters flying all over the United States and abroad to personally convince a player to join their team are fizzling fast. With the advent of high tech toys and business equipment, recruiters no longer have to meet a player, they can email them.

The NCAA is seeing a rise in the use of cell phones and computers in the recruitment process of players. Where once the men in charge of convincing players to attend a certain college would flood the mailbox with offers and pamphlets now lays an empty box. Some players even feel that the use of old school recruiting tactics deems the school "unhip" and therefore not even worthy of their prowess.

Officials in the NCAA have noticed the change in tactics and are now trying to monitor the contact between schools and players. NCAA President Myles Brand told The Associated Press, ,"I don't know if we can ever get ahead of the technology, but as soon as it comes out, we can get involved. We are already struggling with social networks and the technology changes very quickly. That makes it hard."

The NCAA is facing a tough struggle because from conception to regulation, it takes a rule over one year to be approved.

The major concern for the NCAA is in the fact that the manual of rules and regulation for Division I sports, does not contain any guidance for recruiters. However, this will change starting Monday and Tuesday when the NCAA management begin debating the issuance of a ban on text messages use for recruiters in Ivy League schools.

Even though some have called the NCAA "stuffy", Brand believes they are moving in the right technologic direction. By employing pod casts and blogs for daily and weekly communication, Brand is convinced the NCAA is embracing technology. "We'll still have a stuffy section, but we want to have communication in a manner that's appropriate to our student-athletes. We're looking aggressively at new ways of getting our messages out."