Now that tax day is past, it’s once again safe to begin to start hating the NCAA more than the Internal Revenue Service.
And just for those who are having trouble with that, there’s an Associated Press report that an administrator at North Carolina State University, acting on the NCAA’s blessing, ordered a student to close down a Facebook page titled “John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!”
Wall is a guard who came close to averaging a triple-double last year while playing for Raleigh Word of God High School last year, is among the country’s top high school seniors, according to Scout.com and Rivals.com. As of April 20, he had not committed to a college.
In the NCAA’s view, that Facebook page, posted by N.C. State freshman Taylor Moseley, constituted an illegal booster act. NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said the agency’s main concern is that Moseley’s cyber-recruiting would interfere with Wall’s high school experience, according to the Associated Press story.
Internet Ignorance
Christianson’s statement betrays a fundamental ignorance about the way teenagers like Moseley and Wall use the Internet.
Ellen Ruckert, technology director for Ellwood City (Pa.) Area School District, said today’s high schoolers – a category that includes Wall – looks for information on the Internet for the same reason that their grandparents read Moby Dick – because some teacher told them to.
Those students are using Facebook, MySpace and all of the other social networking sites effectively for the same reason their grandparents went to malls – to interact with one another and hang out.
In other words, the N.C. State Facebook recruiting effort wouldn’t be an intrusion into Wall’s life because social networking already is a part of his life. And the same goes for similar Facebook groups at Baylor, North Carolina and Duke.
Or the four at Kentucky.
The NCAA’s recruiting rules are justified in some cases. The best players shouldn’t be wooed by the schools with the wealthiest boosters, or by the institution with female students who are most willing to serve as prostitutes for the athletic program.
Once those players arrive on campus, they should have to do their own work and enough of that work that they make progress toward a legitimate degree and all schools should have a level playing field when it comes to recruiting top talent.
Facebook Generation Gets Final Say
But Facebook recruiting doesn’t violate any of those principles, least of all that last one. In fact – to evoke the title of a book by the New York Times resident op-ed technology geek Thomas Friedman, the playing field isn’t just level, it’s flat.
Facebook itself got its start on college campuses as a way for students to connect with one another and migrated to the general public when dirty middle-aged men realized its potential as a way to hook up with teenage coeds.
For the NCAA, attempting to police social networking sites is a fool’s errand and unnecessary for a venture that has real misdeeds to investigate.
Ultimately, Moseley, the college freshman, taught that very lesson with his parting shot at the NCAA’s compliance officials, according to the Associated Press story. He changed the name of his Facebook group to “Bring a National Title back to NC STATE.”
And just to make sure that message isn’t too subtle, the page includes a prominently-placed photograph of Wall.
