NCAA Members Seek to Override Rules on Recruiting and Pre-Game Lodging

Colleges in the National Collegiate Athletic Association have appealed to force the association to reconsider three rules changes adopted by the association's representative governance system last spring, the association reported. One of the rules -- which would have allowed colleges to make earlier telephone contact with athletes being recruited in sports other than football and men’s basketball -- is suspended while an NCAA panel reconsiders the rule because more than 100 colleges expressed opposition to it. The two other regulations that members are seeking to override -- but that did not earn enough votes to be suspended in the meantime -- (1) prevent an institution from hosting, sponsoring or conducting any nonscholastic basketball practice or game featuring men’s basketball prospects on its campus or at an off-campus facility it uses regularly, and (2) bar institutions in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) from providing lodging (for example, a hotel or motel) to players before a regular-season home football game. Under the override process, NCAA panels will reconsider the legislation, and if they uphold it, the measures could eventually go to a full vote of the relevant NCAA divisions.