Anonymous wrote:This will kill early recruiting. No more communication or offers until after sophomore year.

Meh, only the top 5% were getting freshman offers anyway. It's not a big deal for the majority of girls and takes a bunch of pressure off of them.

For freshman and sophomore student-athletes who have already verbally/unofficially committed to a Division I program and were offered some sort of a scholarship or place on a team, they will not longer be able to discuss these offers with the coach until June 15th after their sophomore year.

This will kill early recruiting. No more communication or offers until after sophomore year.

No communication with a coach until June 15th of the student-athletes sophomore year

Communication = any incoming or outgoing phone, text, email between a student-athlete or parent/guardian and a Division I college coach

College coaches will be allowed to directly initiate communications with recruits (and recruits will be allowed to inititiate contact with college coaches) starting on June 15 at the end of the player’s sophomore year.

Division I college coaches are not allowed to have any kind of recruiting conversation with a student-athlete or parent/guardian prior to this deadline. They can’t make a verbal offer, scholarship offer or help with admissions or other forms of financial aid.

Previously coaches couldn’t initiate contact with a recruit, but the recruit could contact the coach and they could pick up the phone

College coaches may still have correspondences with the student-athlete’s high school or club coach, but it must be to get general feedback on a player and cannot include official recruiting statements or conversations (i.e. financial offers, stating that a player is a top recruit, etc.).

The way it is supposed to work is the college coach can say they have interest in these players meaning these players are on our recruiting radar. That does not necessarily mean they want to offer the player because college are casting a wide net at this point. Maybe they need goalies in the class and so put interest out for all ECNL and DA goalies in the state. Interest is not the same as we like this player. Think of a team roster and they can put a check by the names on their radar.

Beyond this falls into a recruiting discussion. As PPs mention this does not mean rules will not be broken but this is the intent.

What constitutes recruiting is a pretty vague and grey area. A college coach can certainly provide feedback regarding a player’s performance with the club coach. Recruiting is the implication of or a formal offer. Telling a club coach that a player has attributes that could make them successful at “this level” is a generic statement about whatever level the college plays at. Telling the coach “we like Mia and can see her as our future 10” can be more construed as recruiting gesture. Conveying an evaluation to a club coach regarding a showcase performance or ID camp performance simply is not recruiting.

And in reality, verbals as they stand are nothing more than handshake agreements to add a third party proxy to deliver such an offer would be even shakier still. Most players, parents and college coaches would simply rather deal with each other directly anyways which is why the direct contact between college coach and player has been limited.

There is simply no harm in knowing whether a school is or is not interested. There is no harm in allowing the college coach inform the club coach when they are coming to watch a player so the club coach can accommodate playing time. There IS harm with allowing a seasoned adult the ability to talk directly with an impressionable Freshman or sophomore.

Anonymous wrote:Which has more credibility - a well known recruiting website or an anonymous poster?

No more recruiting conversations between a club and college coach. Pretty clear.

True. No "recruiting conversations". But not no conversations. Whenever there is a rule in play, people will try to get around it. I would love to see the actual language of the rule.

It would appear that something like "we really really really like your stud striker Coach Bloggs" is ok, but "We intend to offer your stud striker a full ride Coach Bloggs" is not?