MikeInClifton
06-22-2007, 09:50 AM
Supreme Court upholds limits on high school recruiting (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-scotus22jun22,1,7665782.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true)
(Repeat, high school, not college, recruiting)
Some selected snippets -
High schools with big-time sports ambitions were dealt a setback Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld a rule that forbids coaches from recruiting young athletes. In a 9-0 decision, the justices said the 1st Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not shield coaches who ignore the rules of fair competition by contacting students and encouraging them to enroll in their school.
The court's ruling is likely to reverberate across the country because all 50 states have high school athletic associations with anti-recruiting rules that apply to private and public schools.
Though Thursday's decision dealt with high schools, lawyers for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. said it would strengthen their hand in enforcing restrictions on recruiting college athletes. Recently, the organization barred coaches from sending text messages to potential recruits after reports that star athletes in high schools were being deluged with messages. "This will have an impact on all athletic associations, at whatever level, to make and enforce rules like this one involving recruiting," said Elsa Kircher Cole, general counsel for the NCAA in Indianapolis.
- Why did the NCAA feel compelled to comment on this?
Like never before, high school athletes are getting national exposure, thanks to the proliferation of Internet recruiting websites and the willingness of cable TV channels to broadcast high school events nationally. On the Internet there are services such as Scout.com and Rivals.com that colleges use to recruit high schoolers, and a statistics service, MaxPreps.com, which has more than a million high school athletes in its database and offers data supplied by coaches from all 50 states.
(Repeat, high school, not college, recruiting)
Some selected snippets -
High schools with big-time sports ambitions were dealt a setback Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld a rule that forbids coaches from recruiting young athletes. In a 9-0 decision, the justices said the 1st Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not shield coaches who ignore the rules of fair competition by contacting students and encouraging them to enroll in their school.
The court's ruling is likely to reverberate across the country because all 50 states have high school athletic associations with anti-recruiting rules that apply to private and public schools.
Though Thursday's decision dealt with high schools, lawyers for the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. said it would strengthen their hand in enforcing restrictions on recruiting college athletes. Recently, the organization barred coaches from sending text messages to potential recruits after reports that star athletes in high schools were being deluged with messages. "This will have an impact on all athletic associations, at whatever level, to make and enforce rules like this one involving recruiting," said Elsa Kircher Cole, general counsel for the NCAA in Indianapolis.
- Why did the NCAA feel compelled to comment on this?
Like never before, high school athletes are getting national exposure, thanks to the proliferation of Internet recruiting websites and the willingness of cable TV channels to broadcast high school events nationally. On the Internet there are services such as Scout.com and Rivals.com that colleges use to recruit high schoolers, and a statistics service, MaxPreps.com, which has more than a million high school athletes in its database and offers data supplied by coaches from all 50 states.