This could get interesting did Coach K break recruiting rules during Olympics?

[Russ Smith]

Big story on rivals.com today about 2010 bigman recruit Josh Smith from Washington, it's from a Duke reporter and talks at length about how Josh likes both Duke and UNC and is actively considering both of them(along with several Pac 10 schools like UCLA, UA, UW etc. (he visited USC unofficially for the Ohio State football game).

So during the story Josh said he was extremely impressed that Coach K took time out during the Olympics to call him from Beijing to tell him how much they wanted him to attend Duke.

One problem, per NCAA rules from 8-1 to 9-8, it's a recruiting "quiet period" and only on campus recruiting is allowed. On campus recruiting is defined as contact on campus during official or non official visits by recruits. A phone call is not considering an example of on campus recruiting.

For example Stanford alums were extremely mad that new coach Johnny Dawkins chose to honor his promise to help Coach K with the Olympic team instead of staying home and recruiting for Stanford since being in Beijing meant he could do zero recruiting.

Near as I can tell there is no exemption from the rules for guys coaching national teams so this one could be interesting to follow.

Apparently it's in dispute whether a call from Beijing counts as an official contact or not. Duke is under the impression it doesn't count and is therefore ok under the rules, Stanford was under the impression that Dawkins could do no recruiting while there since he wasn't on campus.

Interesting but I would assume Coach K would know the rules.

 

[Dback Jon]

String'em up!!

K will probably wiggle out of this like an underage Chinese Gymnast

 

[Russ Smith]

String'em up!!

K will probably wiggle out of this like an underage Chinese Gymnast

Turns out Duke is right and Stanford is wrong. Phone calls are different from contacts, Smith was a soph at the time(junior year hadn't started) so by rule Duke can call him once a month, and he can call Duke(or anybody else) as much as he wants. So Coach K calling him once from Beijing actually is within the rules, if they call him more than once it's a violation but he only said call not calls.

Now I guess I see why Stanford fans are mad at Dawkins it would appear he didn't know the rules because they were all complaining he couldn't recruit while in Beijing but he actually could, just one phone call to eachg recruit he was pursuing.

So the Duke fans were right and my initial interpretation of the rule was wrong because I didn't know there was a separate rule for phone calls.