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 ---------- Arthur C. Mintz [log in to unmask] (607) 255-1487 Programmer / Analyst Specialist Team Leader, Developer Support Team Cornell Information Technologies / Information Resources "Indecision may or may not be my problem." - Jimmy Buffett HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.