In light of the recent well publicized happenings this past academic year around the country with regards to official visits, the NCAA has assigned a task force to review the recruiting process. To date, the Task Force has highlighted the following areas for further review and policy making. The final recommendations will be presented to the Board of Directors on August 5th for their immediate action. Look for changes during the 2004-05 academic year.

1. Transportation.

a. Recommendation: Require institutions providing air transportation to prospects to and from an official campus visit to use commercial transportation at coach-class airfare and to prohibit upgrades.
b. Recommendation: Prohibit institutions from using special vehicles (e.g., modified with televisions or special dÃf©cor or appointments) to transport prospects around campus during the official visit. The task force noted that institutions should be expected to use private or institutional vehicles generally used by personnel to transport prospective students on campus tours.

2. Meals and Lodging.

Recommendation: Require prospects (and prospect’s parents or legal guardians) to be housed in standard lodging that does not include special accessories (e.g., Jacuzzis, suites) that are not available generally to all guests residing at the lodging establishment; further, to require prospects (and prospect’s parents or legal guardians) to eat standard meals on an official visit that are comparable to those provided to student-athletes during the academic year and to permit a reasonable snack (e.g., pizza, hamburger) to be provided in addition to the meals.

3. Game-Day Activities.

Recommendation: Prohibit institutions from arranging miscellaneous, personalized promotional activities and from engaging in any game-day simulations during a prospect’s official visit. Such a recommendation would prohibit such activities as personalized jerseys, personalized audio or video scoreboard presentations and running onto the field with the team during pre-game introductions, but would not preclude prospects from being present in the locker room prior or subsequent to a competition or standing on the sidelines during pre-game activities prior to being seated in the regular seating areas during the competition

4. Institutional Policies Related to Official Visits.

Recommendation: To require institutions to certify that written departmental policies related to official visits that apply to prospects, student-hosts, coaches and other athletics administrators have been established and are on file. Institutions would be responsible for the development of appropriate policies regarding specified issues, including policies related to alcohol, hosts, unsupervised entertainment and sessions regarding academic programs and services, and would be held accountable through the NCAA enforcement program for compliance with these policies.

5. Entertainment.

Recommendation: To require that hosts used for the entertainment of prospects consist of either current student-athletes who are members of the team in the sport in which the prospect is being recruited or that they be designated in a manner consistent with the institution’s policies for providing tours to prospective students generally who make campus visits.

6. Other items.

a. The group previously expressed support for the following recommendations:

• Expanding current unethical conduct regulations applicable to prospective student-athletes, student-athletes and institutional staff members to address inappropriate behavior (e.g., under-age drinking, use of drugs, entertainment activities) that may occur during a prospect’s official visit.
• Requiring a prospect making an official visit and the student-athlete serving as a host to sign a form indicating that he or she will not engage in inappropriate conduct during the official visit as defined by the institutions.