FAYETTEVILLE - An NCAA bylaw is in place for incidental contact between college coaches and recruits, and might be used as a defense for the photo that surfaced Thursday showing Arkansas coach John Pelphrey posing with a pair of junior basketball players.
The photo, which shows Pelphrey with Sylvan Hills standout Archie Goodwin and teammate Trey Smith, would be in violation of NCAA bylaw 13.1.1.1 which prohibits off-campus contact with recruits prior to July 1 following the recruit’s junior year of high school. The NCAA rulebook defines contact as any face-to-face encounter.
But according to the initial CBSSports.com report, Pelphrey was approached by the mother of Smith to take the photo last December at a tournament in Conway. NCAA bylaw 13.02.4 states, “an institutional staff member or athletics representative who is approached by a
prospective student-athlete or the prospective student-athlete’s parents, relatives or legal guardians at any location shall not use a contact, provided the encounter was not prearranged and the staff member or athletics representative does not engage in any dialogue in excess of a greeting and takes appropriate steps to immediately terminate the encounter.”
Courtesy: 2010-11 Division I Manual
Translation: incidental contact between a coach and the recruit or its parents is permissible as long as the coach tries to end the contact quickly.
Whether the encounter was prearranged and was ended immediately after the picture isn’t known. Coaches are encouraged to self-report potential compliance issues, but Arkansas athletics director Jeff Long said in a statement Thursday the school became aware of the photo that morning.
“If the facts are as we understand them to be at this time, it would appear to be a secondary violation,” Long said. “Before making any final determination, we will certainly take the appropriate time to review all of the facts and then act appropriately.”
Secondary violations aren’t uncommon and are oftentimes unavoidable. Rarely are they met with such scrutiny, but with the unknowns surrounding the embattled Arkansas coach, the caliber of the recruit and the photo evidence, the potential violation has been magnified.
Following Arkansas’ 74-68 loss to Tennessee in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament Thursday, Pelphrey said compliance issues are taken seriously.
“We’re certainly very sensitive to those things and take all that stuff very, very seriously,” Pelphrey said. “It will be looked into with regards to our compliance people, and if there’s something there, we’ll certainly cooperate and be forthcoming.”
The Razorbacks are 18-13 and await their postseason fate. Long told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday the school had submitted a bid to host a game in the NIT. Arkansas is eligible for that tournament but isn’t guaranteed a spot in the 32-team field.
The Razorbacks haven’t made a postseason tournament since advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2008.
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I think everyone should just wait to pass judgment. Regardless of how satisfied you are with the progress of the Razorbacks during Pel’s tenure, there is one thing about him that almost everyone agrees with. Pel is a man of principle. If it turns out that he did break the rules, it may very well have been unintentional. Let’s not crucify him.
New York, the only acceptable response when a recruit comes up and says ‘My mom wants me to get a picture with you’ is ‘Son, I can’t because NCAA bylaw 13.1.1.1 states that any contact with a junior prior to July 1st following his junior year, and NCAA bylaw 13.02.4 pertaining to incidental contact states that I must terminate contact with you as quickly as is reasonably possible, and pausing for a picture for a kid and his mom may not qualify as “quickly as possible,” resulting in a recruiting scandal, since I don’t coach the football team.’
Any other response indicates clear and malevolent disregard for the rules; or at the very least dimwitted and inexcusable ignorance of the rules, of course depending on how badly you want Pelphrey fired.
oops
“July 1st following his junior year IS IMPERMISSIBLE”
left out a couple of important words- im as bad as Pel
This is where I get lost with the definition of the bylaw.
It says “following his Jr. year”.
Since when did any particular school year end in December? Since when did any particular basketball season end in December?
Oh and el dude, you still didn’t get it right. CJP was approached by the mother of Trey Smith, not Trey Smith and epecially Archie Goodwin. Was he supposed to recongnize this woman or something?
Don’t crucify him. Just fire the man and be done with alraedy. We do not need this type of petty slander to justify his dismisal. I don’t know those NCAA rules and do not care to read legal jargon, Pel decision if poor is of no concern to me, it is his coaching decisions that I am concerned with.