NCAA may not outlaw free recruiting trips

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

While the NCAA is moving toward making significant changes in recruiting, it is apparently losing interest in a proposal that would prohibit schools from paying the expenses of prospective recruits who visit their campuses, two members of the NCAA Task Force on Recruiting said yesterday.

Such legislation would be a major concern for the University of Hawai'i and other geographically challenged schools that prospective recruits might not be able to afford to visit on their own.

The task force is still considering proposals to reduce the number of paid visits a recruit can make and cutting the length of those visits, but doing away with paid trips altogether is something, "that has no legs," said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association and one of 18 members of the task force.

"There was absolutely no support among the task force to eliminate institution-paid official visits for recruiting," said Patty Viverito, associate commissioner of the Missouri Valley Conference and committee member involved in meetings this week.

But NCAA vice president David Berst, the committee chairman, said, "while I don't detect substantial interest in the most extreme measure (banning paid visits), we will not know the actual recommendation until closer to the April 20 report date."

The task force was appointed last month by NCAA president Myles Brand in the wake of recruiting scandals at Colorado and other schools and charged with fast-tracking rules to tighten the recruiting process. Brand asked for new rules to be on the books by Aug. 1 for the upcoming recruiting year.

The task force is expected to submit its recommendations in legislative form to the Management Council April 20.

Berst first brought up the possibility of prohibiting schools from paying for recruiting trips in a "laundry list" of possibilities during an appearance before a congressional committee earlier this month. Several UH coaches say they also are wary of reducing the length of visits from 48 to 24 hours, saying they believe it would be a hardship for recruits traveling from the Mainland.

"That would kill us," said Jackson Wheeler, the primary recruiter for the UH men's basketball team.

"Twenty-four hours might be tough on us because of the distance a lot of the recruits have to come," said Dan Morrison, a UH football assistant.

But UH coaches said reducing the number of permissible visits each recruit can make from five to four would not be a problem. "Most guys we bring in are down to their final two or three or we wouldn't bring them in," Wheeler said.

Morrison said his experience is that it is rare for a recruit to use all five visits. Teaff cited a two-year-old study of 5,500 recruits that said "only about six percent took all their visits."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.