Rice to ask recruits to sign conduct waivers

[Peruna_Ate_My_Rolex]

Rice to ask recruits to sign conduct waivers

04:52 PM CDT on Monday, May 24, 2004


Associated Press



WASHINGTON – In the aftermath of the Colorado recruiting scandal, football prospects visiting Rice University will have to sign forms promising to behave.

"Before they go out, we want to say, 'Here's where you can go; here's where you can't go.' If he's not willing to sign it, I'm not willing to have him on my campus," coach Ken Hatfield said.

The recruiting scandal was one of many topics – including the state of the BCS, coaches' salaries and new academic standards – covered Monday in a Knight Commission meeting about reform in college athletics.

The panel heard Hatfield and former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum defend the practice of having players act as hosts when high school prospects make weekend visits.

"There's no doubt that a satisfied customer is your best salesman," said Hatfield, who asks his host players also to sign the form pledging to avoid certain behavior. "You've got to put them with your student-athlete if you want to know anything about them."

Colorado's football program has become the focus of recruiting problems for several months after allegations that players used sex, alcohol and drugs to lure recruits to the school. A grand jury has been convened to hear some of the more serious charges.

Slocum, now an adviser to Texas A&M's president, spoke against the idea of national standards for recruiting visits, saying they should be left to individual schools.

"I personally don't think this is a major problem," Slocum said. "We can't legislate to do away with all wrongdoing."

If it's not a major problem, then Gary Roberts certainly sees one coming. The director of the Sports Law Program at Tulane, Roberts said there will be one day a scandal so big that it will force major change: a salary cap for coaches; limits on spending for recruiting, stadiums and other facilities; and a fair distribution of television money based on something other than wins and losses.

Such changes would curtail the so-called "arms race" of competitive spending in college athletics, which would affect many sports drastically. The changes can't happen, however, unless Congress passes a law that would grant antitrust protection to the NCAA, which had its power eroded by a 1984 Supreme Court decision on television rights.

"I don't think Congress or the public are ready to embrace what I'm suggesting," Roberts said, "but I think the day is coming. Every day there are more and more scandals, and every day there and more people ashamed" of the current system of college athletics.

Roberts suggested the Knight Commission prepare for the big scandal-to-come by forming a task force to write antitrust legislation. Commission chairman William Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, said Roberts' idea merits serious attention.

Hatfield, for one, was not impressed with the idea of a salary cap for coaches.

"Do you think someone caps the head of your engineering department's salary?" Hatfield asked. "If they're competing against Harvard, Stanford and Rice, and they all want the same person, do you think that university's going to come up with the best package they can?"

The commission also agreed that college football's postseason needs an overhaul to ensure that BCS bowl money is more equitably distributed among schools. The commission did not suggest a playoff for the national championship, as endorsed in testimony by Notre Dame coach Tyrone Willingham.

"For the overall health of college athletics, it is imperative that the NCAA be able to govern postseason football," Friday said.

The commission also praised the NCAA's newly approved academic standards, which toughen high school course requirements for prospective college athletes and will punish colleges whose athletes don't stay on pace to graduate. Panel members addressed fears that schools would be tempted to engage in academic fraud to skirt the new rules.

"We hope that the integrity and character being called for here is followed," Friday said

[The Q]

Man, if there's one school where you'd think that wouldn't be necessary, it's Rice.