NCAA thumbs its nose, kills text messaging

The NCAA on Thursday took a step back a decade or so and banned the use of text messaging between college coaches and recruits.  The NCAA’s board of directors passed the measure by a 13-3 vote basically saying texting interfered with recruits’ daily lives.  Proponents say the opposite is true in that text messaging is the main way recruits today like to be contacted and that Blackberries and Sidekicks are more convenient and less obtrusive than say a phone call.  E-mails and faxes are still permitted.  Phone calls have been regulated between coaches and recruits for years. The issue has been burning for the past couple weeks as the NCAA decided to focus on the issue.   According to an article on Rivals.com a number of coaches in all sports have spoken out for and against the move by the NCAA. Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, sent a letter Monday appealing to the board of directors to consider a more moderate approach rather than just banning the practice outright.  The board in fact said they may revisit a less-prohibitive measure in the future.Some coaches said they plan to spend more time writing personal letters to the players, and other coaches have said their schools have already shifted money around in their recruiting budgets for more mail-outs to prospects and new equipment for their coaches to send e-mails instead of text messages, the Rival.com article said.