The NCAA this week extended the recruiting dead period of Division I athletics through January 1st, 2021. The Council has been reviewing the dead period on a regular basis since April. A dead period precludes all in-person recruiting. Phone calls and correspondence can continue to occur.
This means, if you’re a D1 level athlete, coaches can’t come to you to watch you play, you need to either go to them or send them video and continue corresponding through email and phone conversations only. While COVID-19 is still posing a risk to D1 coaches, D2, D3, Junior College, NAIA and NJCAA coaches are free to openly recruit. This latest move gives division II and III college a better chance to recruit players who may want to reconsider their decisions to attend a larger DI school due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Division I members also adopted emergency legislation prohibiting schools from giving complimentary game tickets to prospective student-athletes and their high school or two-year college coaches during the dead period.
“While the Council acknowledged and appreciates the growing desire to resume in-person recruiting by select coaches’ associations, Council members ultimately concluded the primary concern right now must be protecting the current student-athletes on our campuses,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Pennsylvania. “We encourage our coaches to interact with prospective student-athletes virtually in this time period.”
The decision to implement the dead period was first made at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. The Council has continued to extend the dead period under the guidance of medical experts. The majority of coaches associations also supported an extension of the dead period.
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