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Recruiting Game: UNLV administrator explains key terms in recruiting

Understanding all of the rules surrounding recruiting high school athletes to play in college is a nearly impossible task.

But just knowing what all of the terms mean is a chore of its own.

What is an evaluation? Is a commitment really a commitment? Can a coach contact a prospective student-athlete without really contacting him?

We found an expert — UNLV associate athletic director for compliance Eric Toliver — to help define and understand the key terms in recruiting.

What is a prospective student-athlete, and when does someone become one?

Toliver: “Once you’ve started the ninth grade, then they consider you a prospective student-athlete, but you’re not allowed to start contacting them until their junior year.

“You can be in the band, and we still have to treat you like a prospective student-athlete when you want to come onto campus. The status from prospective student-athlete to athlete changes once you put them on aid and they attend class for one day, either in the summer or in the fall.”

Coaches can’t contact a prospective student-athlete until his or her junior year. What does contact really mean?

Toliver: “It’s a face-to-face encounter where anything more than an exchange of a greeting occurs.”

What about the prospective student-athletes who get information in the mail or by email about schools or programs? That’s not a contact?

Toliver: “General correspondence can be sent before you start contacting them.

“In theory, a football coach could go to an eighth-grader at a 7-on-7 camp, and have conversations and evaluate and have conversations without breaking any rules because he hasn’t started ninth grade.”

What about phone calls?

Toliver: “It depends on your sport. The basic rule is no more than one per week, but now you have a lot of deregulation now, where coaches make telephone calls at the discretion of the institution, meaning unlimited. Basketball is unlimited. Football coaches can text — there used to be a ban on that. That’s open as well.”

That appears to be how prospective student-athletes might commit when they are freshmen or sophomores or even before that. What does that oral commitment mean?

Toliver: “It’s not binding whatsoever. When someone verbals, it’s basically making an announcement that this is where you intend to go. The school owes the student nothing.”

At some point, the prospective student-athlete probably should at least see the campus. There are two types of visits — official and unofficial. What’s the difference?

Toliver: “Kids get five (official visits) prior to college. They have to have a 48-hour itinerary. We want to know where they are eating, where they are lodging, who is coming with them, who is going to be their student-athlete host, what their entertainment is. That’s what is asked prior to the visit. Subsequent to the visit, all the receipts come in.

“Unofficial visits, the student pays. They can take those any time they want.”

Coaches are limited on a total number of days they can do evaluations. Is an evaluation just watching a kid play or practice?

Toliver: “If you just simply watch. But also an evaluation is if you go on that prospective student-athlete’s campus and just look at their transcripts. Evaluations can be academic or athletic performance.”

We hear often of kids getting offers from a school. Is an offer a scholarship?

Toliver: “An offer is what we consider an offer of financial aid (books, fees, tuition, room and board). There are two types of sports, there’s an equivalency sport and there’s a head-count sport. Head count is full scholarship grant in aid, full boat. Equivalency sports have to take the number of athletes and chop up the scholarship.”

Signing day is a big day in some sports. Does every sport have a “signing day?”

Toliver: “Not all sports. There are some sports where it’s wide open. Some have that certain window. If they don’t sign in that window, they can’t sign for that year.”

What does signing really mean?

Toliver: “There are two types of signing. There’s your national letter of intent signing, which is a voluntary program that NCAA institutions belong to. Once you sign that, now there’s a rule that says other institutions cannot contact or recruit that prospect, no telephone calls, no contacts. That binds you for one full year to the institution you signed to.

“You’re only allowed to sign one national letter of intent ever. Let’s say you signed with Colorado State and you do your year, and then you transfer to junior college, and from there you want to go to Texas. You can’t sign another national letter of intent with Texas. What you would sign is your written offer of financial aid. That is an agreement between the student and the school, but it doesn’t preclude other institutions from recruiting that kid. It just says now Texas is responsible for paying for your scholarship.”

If an athlete signs, but then changes his mind, is he still locked into the letter?

Toliver: “There’s a release, an appellate process. (A school can) grant a complete release or to grant a conditional release. That prospect can still appeal that conditional release.”

Does every college athlete sign?

Toliver: “Not every athlete has to sign. The letter of intent has to be accompanied by an offer of financial aid.”

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