Updated at 6:55 a.m., Wednesday, April 18, 2007
NCAA panel backs ban on text messages to recruits
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Coaches would no longer be allowed to send text messages to recruits under a rule change backed by an NCAA panel.The NCAA's Division I management council backed the text-messaging ban during its meeting this week. The change will be considered for final approval by the Division I Board of Directors during its April 26 meeting, the NCAA said.
Unlike restrictions on phone calls and in-person visits, there are no coach limits on text messaging.
The text message ban was proposed by the Ivy League amid concerns from school officials and athletes about privacy and the cost recruits sometimes bear for the text messages.
Division I student-athletic advisory council chairwoman Anna Chappell, who played basketball at Arizona and is a graduate student at Oregon, said athletes backed the ban.
"It's intruding on their lives and creating inappropriate relationships with coaches," Chappell said. "If you don't stop it now, what roads are you going to have to cross later on?"
Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Shane Lyons said the ban would also eliminate loopholes, such as coaches using text-messaging to prod prospects to initiate telephone calls that are impermissible if made by the coach.
