Recruiting, Bribing, Does anyone know the difference anymore?

In today's two primary collegiate revenue sports, the concept of recruiting a team of top players suited to the individual campus and team is a thing of the past. Instead, recruiting has morphed into a process in which the nation's "top" players run programs through what is in essence an auctioning off of their services, with the highest bidder receiving that all-important letter of intent and the accompanying press release boasting of the victory. Rather than being treated as prospective STUDENT-athletes, top high school football and basketball players are being treated in a fashion no different than a free agent is treated in professional athletics. As a result, the programs not only with the willingness to try and elude NCAA investigators, but also the resources to do so, are the programs that ultimately get the top recruits. No longer is recruiting about schools finding the right players and players finding the rights schools. Instead, its all about placing the bids necessary to get the names.

That said, successful programs have gone about the process the right way. One thing we here in Madison should take pride in is the way in which our Men's basketball program (I dont know enough about the football program) has consistently taken the high road in recruiting, sacrificing the chance at that one blue chip recruit in favor of putting together a team of talented individuals willing to put in the effort and make the necessary sacrifices in order to put a winning product out on the court. While the resume of success is clear throughout Bo Ryan's tenure at the top of the program, one thing that is notably absent is the presence of the so-called "one and done" player. In Madison, Bo Ryan sees his team as being composed of players who are students first and athletes second (they are not called athlete-students, are they?). Graduation is a goal on par with an NCAA championship and class is every bit as important as practice.

Unfortunately, this is a philosophy on the decline. Perhaps this is being aided by the NBA's addition of a 19-year-old age limit, requiring high school seniors to wait a year before entering the draft (although more and more are choosing Europe, the reality is that most are opting for the "one and done" college experience). Whereas many of the top high school players had previously just acknowledged reality and jumped straight for their future in the NBA (at their own peril), they are now flooding college coaches with new opportunities to suddenly and immediately change the competitive abilities of their program with one letter of intent. If the new policy was exposing wayward-thinking high school seniors to the value of higher education, I would be all for it. However, the reality is that the new rules are flooding college basketball with young players who ignore the student side of student-athlete and simply spend a year wandering in the world of college basketball, still intent on preparing for the draft and having the goal of an NCAA championship in their minds only as a secondary thought. As for the chance to get a fully-subsidized college degree? Forget it, too much effort. And amidst all this, lets not forget that they are taking up a scholarship that could have just as easily been used to fund the education of someone who truly wanted to pursue knowledge and not just a lottery pick.

Even more troubling than the ignorance of academics in the collegiate basketball experience is the way in which these so-called "one and done" recruits have brought the evils of the NBA and of professional sports free agency as a whole into the recruitment process. Today's recruit is no less laden with perks than Lebron James was this past summer. Just as teams flocked to Cleveland on Lebron's terms, coaches flock to communities across the country promising every possible benefit in the hopes of getting that blue chip signature. And while the majority of the promised benefits remain within the confines of NCAA regulations, more and more recruits are finding themselves flooded with monetary promises, only getting around NCAA investigation through the use of the modern AAU coach, a role that has gradually morphed from mentor to de-facto agent. This is where the NCAA has tried to step in and is where they truly should be focusing their enforcement attention. Nicer dorms, better class schedules, higher food stipends, these are merely the benefits a collegiate athlete should have in return for their providing the University with positive attention and increased revenue. Payment in the form of cash or promises of goods such as cars, homes, and other luxury goods, these are the perks of a professional athlete, NOT A COLLEGIATE ONE. The growing influence of AAU "coaches" in gaining their players direct access to these goods is endangering NCAA athletics' survival as a bastion of pure amateur athletic competition. Sure, the popularity of collegiate athletics necessitates the growth of a business component to Men's Basketball and Football. That said, we must stop the growth of this "business" within collegiate athletics before we lose the distinction between the final four and the NBA finals, between the BCS championship game and the Super Bowl.