re: Message from LSU Compliance regarding Message Boards

I have a little experience in this area, so I'll touch on the subject for anyone who wants to read it. If you don't want to read my overly-long explanation, skip to the last bit and you'll get the message.

This is basically how it is, in a nut shell.

The bottom line, when it comes to fans and recruits: If a fan trys to influence where a recruit should attend college, that college is in violation of NCAA rules. There is one exception to this: anyone who has a prior relationship to the recruit before (more or less) any school begins to recruit him. Those people with prior relationships to the recruit (family, friends, coaches, etc.) can influence the recruit as they see fit.

Now for some of the misconceptions many fans have on this subject.

1) These rules are stupid, unfair, (and my favorite) unconstitutional. First, these rules are only stupid and unfiar if you are a fan.

FYI: on the NCAA totem, the fans rank last, or next to last. Their main priority, in this case, is to protect recruits and their families and friends. Imagine your son is a 5-star quarterback being courted by the big teams. Imagine also that their are no NCAA rules prohibiting fan/recruit contact. Fans from all over the nation would be knocking at your door 24 hours/day. They would be swarming your house. They would try to contact your son at school, on dates, while driving, etc. It would make your family's life a living hell (similar to Britney Spears/paparazzi), and the NCAA will not stand for that, and rightfully so. As far as the consititution argument goes... that's just stupid. The NCAA does not restrict what you as an american can say, but they can definitely punish your college for what you say to a recruit.

2) These rulse can't be enforced (i.e. It's rediculous to think a school could actually regulate what it's fans can say to anyone.). Another fan's argument that follows along these same lines is: even if I do encourage a recruit to attend my favorite college, and my favorite college reports it to the NCAA, the NCAA will not really punish my college.

The NCAA will not tolerate the previous situation I just described (i.e. Britney/paparazzi). The NCAA puts the reponsiblity on the schools, themselves, to insure that this does not happen. The schools must put forth every effort to educate their fan bases and to prevent them from influencing recruits (thus, you get LSU's message on the first page). If the university KNOWS a recruit has been influenced by a booster of the program (here, the term "booster" includes fans - and it has nothing to do with giving money) it must self-report to the NCAA that they have committed a secondary (minor) violation. Now, what type of punishment will this cause? From the NCAA, probably nothing of which to speak. However, ESPN has an army of peons that scour the daily minutia of college football happenings. The next day LSU self reports, you'll see a headline on SportsCenter saying: "LSU athletic department committs NCAA violation(s) regarding its football team." How many LSU recruits watch SportsCenter? How many coaches at rival schools will use such a thing to recruit negatively against LSU? "You don't want to go to LSU, they'll be on probation and lose a bunch of scholarships next year because their a dirty program." Can't you just hear Saban saying that?
The real punishment comes from the P.R. fallout if LSU self-reports violations committed by fans, and they MUST self-report if they do, in fact, find a violation no matter how small. They would be completely stupid not to.

Take home message for any fan who loves LSU: You can interact with an LSU recruit all you want, JUST DON'T TRY TO INFLUENCE THEIR COLLEGE CHOICE IN ANY WAY, EVEN IF THEY ASK YOU FOR SUCH ADVICE.

P.S. Forgot to add this one litte exception: Anyone can pretty much say anything to a LSU recruit IF, IF the recruit is on campus for an official visit. Otherwise, I'd stick with what I wrote above.