Understanding the many facets of a recruit being “committed”
Athletics Veritas is a weekly series aimed at helping higher education executives, faculty, and other stakeholders stay tuned in on trending national issues impacting college athletics, especially NCAA Division I. Athletics Veritas is created by senior DI athletic administrators around the nation.
When is a Prospect Really Committed to Our School?
The Fall 2020 signing periods begin this week
Understanding the many facets of a recruit being “committed”
An NCAA-defined “commitment” brings conclusion to the recruiting process
The Pandemic makes the recruiting courtship a long-distance affair
Post-signing access will help signed prospects get to know their Division I school better
Abraham Lincoln once remarked that “commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality.”
The reality for recruiting Division I prospects in 2020 has been mostly surreal. Yet, the culminating event in the recruiting process -- signing a National Letter of Intent and athletics scholarship with an NCAA member institution -- proceeds as scheduled this month.
Tomorrow marks the start of the fall 2020 signing period for all sports other than football as well as the start of the early signing period for men’s and women’s basketball.
Coaches are lamenting their inability to see in-person recruits due to the universal dead period and the disruption of high school and club sport competitions due to the pandemic. Left with no other options, college coaches are increasingly relying on video, insights from high school and club coaches and national rankings, among other means, to fill the void.
For all stakeholders though, when does the recruiting process truly finish? That’s where the word “commitment” enters stage right.
The word “commitment” carries both an informal, sometimes fleeting connotation within the college athletics recruiting world while simultaneously carrying precise, NCAA legislative weight that sets particular boundaries, privileges, and responsibilities to those involved in the recruiting process.
In terms of a recruiting ‘commitment’ existing in a state of casual nomenclature, we frequently hear news of a prospect “verbally committing” to a Division I institution. Taken at face value, a verbal commit is just that -- a prospect verbally informing a coaching staff that “I am in. I’m coming to your school and can’t wait to be a part of the program.”
This unofficial declaration can occur on the heels of the prospect’s successful and positive campus recruiting visit, in response to a verbal scholarship offer the prospect receives from the coaching staff, or even from a prospect's self-declared timeline to announce a commitment. These verbal commitments declared by prospects across all sports often reveal themselves in the form of a tweet or Instagram post. To the surprise of no one, prospects are followed on social media by college coaches, non-coaching staff, recruiting services, and college sports media tracking the prospect’s life and, in turn, trying to stay current on any breaking news of their commitment or even a leaning toward one school or another.
For some sports, there’s an unwritten rule that if a prospect has verbally committed to another school, you cease recruiting that prospect. For other sports though, everything is fair game on the recruiting front -- including continued recruitment of a prospect that has verbally committed elsewhere -- until the process is over. A verbal commitment, in the end, is unofficial and non-binding.
If verbal commitments are more precursor than destination, when is the recruiting process over? That brings us to the NCAA’s definition of “commitment.”
In various provisions of the NCAA’s recruiting rules (namely Bylaw 13), a commitment occurs when one of the following happens:
The prospective student-athlete signs a National Letter of Intent (NLI) or the institution's written offer of admission and/or financial aid; or
The institution receives a financial deposit in response to the institution's offer of admission. In basketball and football, for institutions that subscribe to the NLI program, this exception does not apply to an individual who only signs an institution's written offer of admission and/or financial aid prior to the initial regular (as opposed to early) signing date of the NLI program in the applicable sport. In sports other than basketball and football, for institutions that subscribe to the NLI program, this exception does not apply to an individual who only signs an institution's written offer of admission prior to the initial signing date of the NLI program in applicable sport.
After an individual has signed an NLI or the institution's written offer of admission and/or financial aid or after the institution has received the prospect’s financial deposit in response to its offer of admission, the individual is no longer subject to the restrictions of Bylaw 13.1. This particular bylaw governs who, what, where, when, and how often recruiting phone calls, evaluations, and contacts may happen between a Division I coaching staff and prospects. This post-commitment NCAA exception only goes so far though, as an individual remains a prospective student-athlete for purposes of applying the remaining provisions of Bylaw 1including the continued application of restrictions on recruiting inducements, limits on number of official visits, and impermissible tryouts, to name a few.
To put it into context, once a prospect is NCAA-committed, a signed prospect may be called or contacted, on or off campus, by the signing institution’s coaches at their discretion. This includes in-person contact during dead periods, which is time-period any in-person contact with a prospect is traditionally outlawed. An NCAA-committed prospect that wants to visit the campus of their NCAA member school during a dead period could do so even though all other unsigned prospects could not do the same.
Certain Division I sports are limited in the number of times they may evaluate prospects. Recruiting activity involving only a prospect who has signed a National Letter of Intent or the institution’s written offer of admission and/or financial aid or for whom the institution has received a financial deposit in response to its offer of admission does not have to count as a recruiting-person day---another example of post-signing flexibility.
There is fine print though. Situational considerations must be accounted for when applying the post-commitment interaction flexibility following a prospect becoming an NCAA committed prospect. The situation considerations center around time and place. For example, college coaches are inviting NCAA violations if they contact an NCAA-signed prospect at his or her high school during a dead period when other, unsigned prospects are roaming the hallways, as contact with those unsigned recruits is an NCAA violation.
The gist is that the recruiting process is essentially over once the NLI, scholarship or admissions paperwork is signed and confirmed.
The most consequential of these commitment papers that conclude the recruitment is the NLI. The NLI is a two-way, binding agreement that confirms the NCAA member school shall provide the signed prospect with the athletics scholarship as specified if, in return, the signed prospect is NCAA eligible, admitted to the institution, and enrolls. Further, all other Division I institutions must also recognize NLI signings and cease recruitment of an NLI signee.
Conversely, a prospect who only signs institutional scholarship papers without an NLI attached or a non-scholarship walk-on who signs an offer of admission or makes financial deposit are tantamount to non-binding commitments. That is, although uncommon, prospects may sign as many non-NLI institutional scholarships and admissions offers with as many Division I institutions as they wish.
Regardless of the type of commitment paperwork in play, the NCAA membership’s rationale for creating this key juncture in the recruiting process is that more unrestricted communications and access between the Division I school’s coaches and staff and the signed prospect and his or her family is a net-positive. The focus at this juncture is for the NCAA member school to help the signee transition to campus life, complete orientation, register for classes, prepare for the academic rigors of college, manage highly regulated schedules, as well as prepare for the competitive zeal of Division I sports.
The NCAA's commitment provision also allows for the exchange of information to help the NCAA-committed prospect with their on-boarding. After a prospect has signed an NLI or institutional financial aid agreement, or has been officially accepted for enrollment, an institution may provide the following via electronic correspondence or digital media storage device (e.g., DVD, flash drive) to the signed prospect:
Video/audio material personalized to include a prospective student-athlete's name, picture or likeness; and
Necessary pre-enrollment information regarding orientation, conditioning, academics and practice activities in a video format (e.g., video playbook, game clips).
The first part of the above provision reflects much of the celebratory spectacle and branding of landing a recruit. The second part of this NCAA rule is crucial for the signee’s preparation in all aspects of a college athlete's life. This exception enables, for example, a Division I women’s basketball strength coach to send an NCAA-committed women’s basketball prospect a conditioning manual for the signee to reference and use while still finishing their high school enrollment. A field hockey coach could send one of their NCAA-committed prospects playbooks that show defensive alignments for their signed prospect to learn and study.
As the most coveted recruits in the highest profile sports are often inclined to do, prospects (including high school sophomores and juniors) may announce their “short list” of schools on social media even before they get to verbally committing to one institution. These short lists can be over 10 schools long.
The Division I recruiting landscape has clearly been upended in many ways in 2020 due to the pandemic. Current high school seniors and juniors are the ones who have lost the most opportunity to be seen by college coaches because they are not getting the quality and quantity of recruiting exposures due to the NCAA’s universal dead period.
High school seniors who sign an NLI and institutional financial aid agreement in the coming days may need to utilize the post-NCAA commitment communication and access to get to know their future coaches, teammates, and school more closely than they were able to manage the past several months.
Another branch to the fall 2020 signing period to watch for are high-profile prospects’ signing announcements. These are usually fanfare events held where high profile prospects or groups of prospects from the same high school announce their commitment (sometimes even covered by national media). These events are cause for celebration and a school assembly with family and friends standing by as the high school prospect makes their school choice known and, back on campus, with many Division I coaches closely watching on pins and needles from their offices, too. How will these signing day events be handled in light of the pandemic? Immediate family only? Remotely from home instead of at the high school gym?
Regardless of how the signing announcements go down this fall, the commitment standards apply the same as in years past: A prospect signs an NLI, institutional scholarship, financial deposit or admissions confirmation form, and he or she is officially NCAA-committed. The recruiting process, by and large, is over.
As these pandemic-era prospects’ signatures hit the dotted lines in the coming days and the subsequent on-boarding period begins between the Division I institution and the signed prospect, one can almost hear the King and I’s signature ballad: “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.”
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
