Kentucky Self-Reports MySpace Recruiting Violation

[Irish Envy]

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- Kentucky self-reported a secondary NCAA violation because of postings on a potential recruit's MySpace.com Web site, apparently by fans.

The postings on the site of West Virginia high school basketball star Patrick Patterson, who just completed his junior year at Huntington High School, tried to entice him to attend Kentucky, WLEX-TV in Lexington reported.

"Fans are not allowed to interact with recruitable student athletes," Kentucky athletics spokesman Scott Stricklin said Wednesday. "We had to report that to the NCAA."

Patterson, a 6-foot-8 center, was named the West Virginia Player of the Year this year and led Huntington High to its second straight state title, compiling 23 points, 11 rebounds and 6 blocked shots in the championship game. For the regular season, he averaged 14.5 points, 11 rebounds and 4.4 blocks per game and has had interest from several Division I colleges.

Stricklin said when fans contact potential recruits, the school tries to educate them not do to that or it will hurt the school.

He said if that takes care of the problem, there would likely be no further action.

Source: CSTV.com

 

[Irish Envy]

UK has had to turn in a minor violation to the NCAA for something fans are doing on the internet to allegedly lure a prized basketball recruit to Kentucky.

Patrick Patterson is a main target in UK's 2007 recruiting class. Some UK fans allegedly have posted some things on Patterson's MySpace.com page that are NCAA violations. The postings try to entice Patterson to come to UK by including a photo of three UK Dance Team members with the comment, "This is what I hear MVP's of NBA camps are getting nowadays when they get on campus.....at the same time."

The women in the photo had no idea this was posted. A photo and caption of Ashley Judd has also been posted.

UK compliance director Sandy Bell is asking UK fans not to do this because of damage it could cause the basketball program. Bell says part of her job is monitoring the internet and message boards.

Only coaches can contact potential recruits.

Source: Lex18.com

 

[Irish Envy]

Apparently Notre Dame is also taking this very seriously. I have heard of many people receiving emails from the University telling them that they are now labeled as a booster because of contact with a potential recruit, either knowingly or unknowingly.

I've decided to be proactive and have deleted the IrishEnvy account. While the free advertising was great, I'm not down with jeopardizing the University. If you have had contact with anyone that plays football and is in high school on MySpace, odds are you are now a booster according to the NCAA.

I'd urge you to purge your friends list of anyone you do not personally know, or delete your account entirely just to make sure you don't stick ND with a recruiting violation.

 

[Irish Envy]

Just to take this a bit further, I'm not sure if the NCAA realizes the rabbit hole they've uncovered here. Because of the anonymity of the Internet and MySpace, there is just no way to accurately police this.

For example: The simple fact that MySpace accounts can be opened anonymously means that a Michigan fan can create an account pretending to be an Irish fan and contact prospective recruits. In doing so, the Michigan fan, has committed a recruiting violation against Notre Dame.

Uh oh, Charlie. This is gonna get U-G-L-Y.

 

[rontdtarchala]

Man Svo thats some seriously scary stuff

 

[NDisTOPS]

I hope i don't get ND in trouble for trying to convince Arrelious Benn to come to ND by writing on his myspace site. If you saw al the idiots from FSU and Miami typing on his site, you would try to talk some sense into them too.

 

[jiggafini19]

Like I said, college admission boards look at these things. Now compliance offices of athletic departments are too. High school boards look at them most often. It's scary stuff. Jimmy Clausen has 3 up that aren't even his...someone just made them up claiming to be him.

Text messages are being regulated, now the My Space sites. Pretty soon there won't be any contact allowed with these kids at all.

 

[Guest]

The NCAA needs to lighten up on this because like Svo said there isn't anyway for schools to police this. Sounds silly to me, if thats the case the NCAA needs to tell these recruits that they will lose eligibility if they open up myspace accounts, because there's just no way for the schools to police this.