guncurug: University of Florida

Football Signing Day: When High School Seniors Sign Away Their Futures in Return for Nothing

06.39

The first Wednesday of February is the first day of the annual signing period for NCAA Division I football players during which prospective student athletes sign copies of the National Letter of Intent indicating their commitment to attend the school of their choice and fax the letter into the football coach of the chosen school. It's an annual rite in which we all get to witness hundreds of grown crowded around fax machines in various states of panic for periods of several hours, awaiting faxes from all those kids who verbally committed to their program. Some schools, notably Alabama, have live webcams fixed on those same fax machines to satisfy maniacal fans who want to see the faxes spit out even though they can't read the names.

But, is the National Letter of Intent in the best interest of the student athlete? Should he or she sign one? For most the answer may be yes, even though as with almost all matters concerning collegiate athletics, the NLI is a one-sided document totaling favoring the college or university. The NLI commits the student to attend the chosen university, while committing the university to nothing more than a give the student a one year grant in aid in accordance with NCAA guidelines.

The NLI does not guarantee the student playing time or even a spot on the time. As we shall see, the NLI does limit the student's freedom of movement even if his reason for attending the school in the first place has changed. It is also, not unusual for coaches to over-recruit and then pressure students to "grayshirt" or delay their admittance in order to defer counting theirs scholarship against the ensuing class scholarship limits. (An aside, this practice was roundly condemned yesterday in a sanctimonious op-ed piece on SI.com, by the President of the University of Florida, who apparently didn't know, or perhaps just chose to ignore, that it was a practice routinely engaged in by former coach Urban Meyer).

So, why is signing in the best interest of most athletes? If you're not an superstar who would be guaranteed a spot on the team just by showing up, then signing a NLI, while it may not guarantee your spot on the team, will substantially increase the likelihood that it will not be given away before you get to campus. If you are a superstar, five star prospect, then you are probably just as well served by not signing a NLI and just telling the coach that you will be coming to his school. That way, you won't be locked in should something happen before you get there, such as the coach leaving for another job or retiring. If you have signed a NLI and that should happen, then your ability to move to a different school rests on a release by the school with which you signed or, absent such a release, an appeal granted by the Collegiate Commissioners Association which administers the NLI.

Duke

Knicks With Amnesia, Hire Isiah Thomas as Consultant; Thomas Stays FIU Coach

05.50

There are many reasons that the New York Knicks have been as bad as they were before Mike D'Antoni showed up last season, but surely Isiah Thomas was one of the main reasons, so that makes the recent announcement that Thomas is being hired by the Knicks as a consultant all the more curious. Adding to the intrigue, it appears that D'Antoni was not consulted on the decision. Moreover, Knicks vice president and general manager Donnie Walsh opposed the hiring and was said to be livid that Knicks Chairman James Dolan went ahead and hired Thomas over Walsh's objections.

Aside from the questions that the hiring raises for the Knicks, the fact that Thomas will keep his day job as head coach at Florida International raises conflict of interest issues for both the NCAA and the NBA. The NBA has not yet approved the contract and there is a chance that David Stern may reject it. Several owners are said to be very upset and very much opposed to the hiring of Thomas, which must clearly be a stand they are taking on the potential conflict of interest issue and not on the effect Thomas will have on the immediate on court prospects of the Knicks.

The NCAA should step in and put a stop to this arrangement and if there is no current rule that prohibits a coach from moonlighting for a professional team (hard to believe that one doesn't exist in that 500 page rule book, but who knows) then the NCAA Executive Committee ought to quickly pass one. The opportunities for recruiting abuse that this example may afford are too numerous to mention and just because Thomas happens to be at FIU and not Florida or Kentucky doesn't make it any less of a conflict of interest or make the potential for abuse any less a real.

The coaches who regularly put kids in the NBA are now selling their ability to get kids ready to be drafted, and academics and education be damned. Imagine how much more powerful that message is if those same coaches are now employed as consultants to individual NBA teams. Think Calipari at Kentucky would ever lose out on a top 5 recruit if he was also a consultant to the Nets? How about Coach K and the Bulls? Think this situation would be a good one for the other teams in their conference whose coaches don't have consulting agreements? Think the gulf between the high majors and mid-majors would widen much in that scenario?