Apr 11, 2009
Ravenscroft's Matt Wilson, (42) tries to stop the shot of Word of God's John Wall, (11) on Wednesday night, February 4, 2009 at Ravenscroft High School in Raleigh. Word of God won 82-64. (Photo by C.F.Ward)
And its a big problem.
How in the world can the NCAA hold a school responsible for what an individual student (not a student-athlete) does on a social networking like Facebook? And how in the world does the NCAA see that as a recruiting violation?
In case you missed the story, a freshman at N.C. State University created a Facebook group called "John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!" The group had more than 700 members, that is, until N.C. State demanded the group be shutdown by its creator, Taylor Moseley.
N.C. State said it was a recruiting violation, and the NCAA agreed.
WHAT? Since when can a fan of a school commit a recruiting violation?
Now, I'm not going to even pretend that I know all the NCAA recruiting rules (I don't think anyone does), but if the NCAA is TRULY going to say fans can commit recruiting violations, boy do they have a mess to clean up!
I logged onto Facebook this morning, searched for groups with the key word "John Wall," and what appears? A lot of groups.
There were over 500 results (granted, not all of them were actually about John Wall), but in the first 10 results pages, I found six Wall to Kentucky groups, three groups to bring Wall to Memphis, and at least one group from Baylor and Duke.
One of the groups from Kentucky fans is entitled, "John Wall is the answer (not taking it down till the ncaa or UK tells me)," referencing the N.C. State group that was removed.
Two other Kentucky groups also reference John Calipari bringing DeMarcus Cousins and Xavier Henry to the school as well.
Facebook isn't the only place "online recruiting violations" are being committed.
What about the fan sites like InsideCarolina.com, PackPride.com, or TheDevilsDen.com? These are fan sites not directly associated with the schools, but they have message boards in which people talk about prospects. Are these people students or alumni of the schools? One could assume that some of them are. Are these sites committing recruiting violations as well?
N.C. State and the NCAA overreacted here. Next thing you know, they're going to have dead periods for when students and alumni of schools can watch recruits play basketball.
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