I forwarded Mike's original posting to Virginia Augusta, who is Cornell's
assistant athletic director and NCAA compliance officer. She has given me
permission to post her reply to hockey-l.
 
>
>The attached excerpt from hockey-L raises a variety of complicated issues.
>There is no doubt in my mind that we will see some legislation evolve on
>the use of the internet.  Already at the 1996 convention it was voted that
>email and facsimiles be treated as "correspondence" as of 8/1/96 rather
>than a "telephone call."  As you may know, an institutional staff member
>may contact a psa as often as they like by correspondence, whereas they may
>only contact the psa once per week by telephone.  So anytime a coach needs
>to fax some info to a kid he currently utilizes his phone call for the
>week, in effect inflating the cost for recruiting (coaches now fed ex
>things so they don't use their one call for the week).  You'll be happy to
>learn that the Ivy league proposed this legislation. The new rule may
>backfire and be abused. If so, you will see more restriction placed on
>email contact.  Even worse, if such restrictions are put in place I wonder
>how we could ever monitor this contact.  If you can't monitor a rule it is
>usually a bad one. Therefore we will have to wait and see.
>
>As for your inquiry on recruiting questions from psa and their parents...
>since you are an alumni/representative of athletics interest you are very
>limited in any recruiting contact... Until 8/1/96, email must be treated as
>a telephone call.  Bylaw 13.1.2.5 precludes representatives of athletics
>interest from making telephone contact with a psa unless the psa initiates
>it.  In this case, you may respond to a psa's general questions.  For
>example, "I am interested in pursuing a biology major while playing college
>hockey.  Does Cornell have such a major?"  Or "how many students attend
>Cornell?"  When it gets to specifics about athletics you can answer things
>like "what league does Cornell play in?" or "how many sports does cornell
>have?"  Anything more specific should be referred to a coaching staff
>person.  Continuing such detailed contact would be a violation of Bylaw
>13.1.2.5. As a general rule you can never initiate any contact with a psa
>unless you are a part of an official institutional admissions program. And
>even in this capacity specific questions on athletics should be passed on
>to the appropriate athletics staff person.
>
>Perhaps it would be useful to establish a coaches directory at the hockey-L
>web site.  Then all specific questions could be directed to the right
>person.
>
>Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
>
>Virginia
>
>Virginia Augusta
>Assistant Athletic Director Compliance & Student Services
>Cornell Athletics, Teagle Hall, Campus Road, Ithaca, NY  14853
 
 
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Arthur C. Mintz          [log in to unmask]          (607) 255-1487
Programmer / Analyst Specialist
Team Leader, Developer Support Team
Cornell Information Technologies / Information Resources
 
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