By Michelle Kaufman
McClatchy Newspapers
When Billy Gillispie was introduced as the University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach last spring, athletic director Mitch Barnhart paid him a mighty compliment, boasting that Gillispie had ``the fastest thumbs in America.’’
Once upon a time, the best recruiters in college sports were the smoothest talkers, the coaches who could mesmerize parents in living rooms and wrap young athletes around their pinkies.
The past few years, nimble thumbs came in equally handy in the ultracompetitive recruiting wars. As teenagers began communicating through text-messaging, instant messaging, Blackberries, i-Phones, and Sidekicks, tech-savvy coaches learned the shorthand and tapped into the latest gizmos.
Before long, the nation’s top recruits were waking up to messages such as: It's a gr8 day to be a (ill-in-mascot) and Can’t wait 2 get u here in fill in (name of college town)!’’
Throughout the school day, their phones would vibrate and there would be good luck messages from the grown men and women trying to woo them. Gillispie was sending out an average of 8,000 text messages a month, and University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer was such an avid texter, he earned the nickname ``Coach Text Message.’’
But Gillispie and Meyer are giving their thumbs a bit of a rest these days because on Aug. 1, the NCAA banned coaches from text-messaging recruits. Unlike phone calls and visits, which are monitored and restricted by the NCAA, there were no limits on text messages or instant messages. The NCAA found some athletes were being overburdened with unsolicited salutations.
The most sought-after recruits were getting as many as 100 texts per day, and unless their parents had subscribed to unlimited text-messaging services, their phone bills were mounting.
Some coaches also were using text messages to bend rules, urging recruits to call them during periods when coaches are allowed to initiate only one phone conversation per week.
The rules say a coach can call an athlete only once, but an athlete can call a coach as many times as he or she wants.
That loophole was sealed with the new rule.
Reaction to the ban has been mixed among coaches and athletes. It will be revisited at an NCAA board meeting in January.
``I am a big texter, and I hope they bring it back,’’ University of Miami men’s basketball coach Frank Haith said.
``It gave us another way to build a relationship and get to know these kids on a more personal level. I had great text-messaging exchanges with my recruits. I think it’s extremely important for kids to see that you can communicate on their level, that you care about their world. My players have so many electronic gadgets, they look like they have tool boxes hanging from their belts, so I had to catch up.’’
Meyer also disagrees with the new rule.
In my opinion, it's wrong,'' he said. I mean, that’s how you communicate nowadays. If you want to go back and use the rotary phone, too, say coaches can only use a rotary phone. I don’t understand that at all - I think text-messaging helps with getting to know someone.
" Our staff is being as proactive as everyone else. Guys are trying to be creative within the rules. You need to communicate with a student-athlete.’’
Sergio Ruoca, the men’s basketball coach at Florida International, shrugs at the ban, saying it doesn’t affect him because he is ``a dinosaur’’ who doesn’t own a Blackberry or use text messaging. He relies mostly on old-fashioned phone calls.
``I like to hear a kid’s reaction when I say something, and you don’t get that with text messages or e-mails,’’ Ruoca said.
``I’m a mano-a-mano guy. I’d rather talk to a kid than type dumb questions on a keyboard like, ‘How are you today?’ or ‘How was school today?’ I don’t get it, and I don’t care if they ever bring text-messaging back.’’
The NCAA’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, led by former Arizona basketball player Anna Chappell, initiated the new legislation after hearing complaints from athletes, and many coaches and recruiting coordinators.
``Text messaging was intruding on their lives and creating inappropriate relationships with coaches,’’ Chappell said.
There also were some concern that text messaging cuts high school coaches and parents out of the recruiting equation, leaving highly impressionable youngsters to sift through their suitors on their own.
Miami freshman defensive back DeMarcus Van Dyke remembers waking up during high school to 15 to 20 text messages from colleges every morning.
After a while, he found it ``aggravating,’’ and his mother got mad at him when a $175 phone bill showed up one month.
``I’d wake up, flip open my phone and there would be messages like, ‘Have a good day,’ and ‘It’s a great day to be a Florida Gator’,’’ Van Dyke said.
``I was being texted by Florida, FSU, UCLA, Virginia, Virginia Tech, UM, FIU, Georgia, Georgia Tech, a bunch of schools.
‘‘At first, it’s flattering because you think you’re special getting these messages, but then I’d talk to my friends, and they’d be getting the same exact messages at the same time, same typos and everything, so some schools must have been sending automated texts.’’
Several Miami players said their phone bills exceeded $100 per month during the recruiting process because text messages cost 10 cents to open, and they were receiving as many as 1,000 texts per month.
Many of those players’ parents switched to unlimited text-messaging plans as a result.
I can see why the NCAA made this rule,'' UM senior guard Andrew Bain said. It can get out of hand, and the thing is, most kids don’t base their decisions on how many text messages or e-mails they get anyway. It comes down to if you like the school, location, the atmosphere and what they’re doing of offense and defense. UM called me less than some other schools, and I still came here.’’
Nevertheless, coaches try to get any edge they can in recruiting, and many are hoping the rule is reversed. More than 30 of the 119 Division I-A schools petitioned against the ban, and it will be under review after the football season.
Miami women’s basketball coach Katie Meier would vote for reinstatement. She finds text messaging ``less invasive and more efficient’’ than phone calls because the recipient can choose to read it or not at any time and answer immediately.
Meier said athletes who want to ignore unwanted solicitation from recruiters can do it more easily with text-messaging than if they had answered their phone.
``I really miss texting with my recruits because there is a protective veil to texting, and kids seem to reveal more in text than they would on the phone,’’ Meier said.
``Face to face is still number one, but texting is an effective tool. I think the NCAA should just put limits on it as far as number of hours and reasonable hours. We shouldn’t be bothering kids during their school days or at 2 in the morning.’’
University of Miami football recruiting coordinator Clint Hurtt said the ban hurts a school’s ability to make educated recruiting choices.
``We’re not like the NFL. We can’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to do background checks on kids,’’ Hurtt said.
``And just as much as kids know us, we want to get to know the kid. What do you bring to the table? I hope the NCAA changes the rule. If they don’t, you’re going to find more kids making decisions they wish they didn’t make and more universities wishing they knew more about the kids when they sign them.’’
In the end, though, ``texting or no texting, some people are going to find ways to cheat,’’ Hurricanes football coach Randy Shannon said.
``There are a lot of things the NCAA won’t be able to stop,’’ Shannon said.
``You can buy cell phones now that are untraceable. There’s no way they can police these things. The rule probably helps because kids shouldn’t be getting contacted during class, and it can be expensive, so I can see why they did it, but it won’t stop people from trying to get an edge any way they can. It’s more competitive out there then ever.’’
