As a travel baseball coach, I've seen a disturbing trend over the years, one that I've long thought was walking a thin line toward some student athletes losing their amateur status via the NCAA decalaring them ineligible. Just a few weeks ago, I received an email questioning our activities with one of my former players, a young man who also played for USA Baseball's Youth National Team. Due to the answers he gave on their elibibility certification questionnaire, they contacted me for clarification about his activities. In the end, all was fine, but it did set a discussion in motion about some other practices I've seen some other teams engage in with top level players, a practice that I've long thought might risk a players eligibility to play college sports.
What I'm referring to above is the practice of some high profile/budget travel teams inviting top level players who are not regular members of their teams to join them for large regional or national tournaments. I've heard of cases where the player has been given airfare, lodging, meals and possibly other expenses being covered, in order to come play for certain teams in large tournaments, and I wondered what the NCAA thought of this. So, as part of my ongoing dialogue with one of the NCAA's staffers in their eligibility center, I posed the following question and received the response shown below.
Question:
"Let me ask you about a specific situation I am aware of with a local athlete. Let’s say the player is on a local team, but a different team (one he is not a regular member of) invites him to go to a big tournament out of state. They offer to pay his airfare, lodging and meals if he’ll come and play with them in that tournament. There is no fee charged for him to play with the team, and they’re picking up all of his expenses to go play in that tournament. Would that be a violation?"
Response: "Yes. It would."
That response came directly from the NCAA eligibility center. I know for a fact that I'm not the only person who spends time on HSBBW's forums who is aware of exactly this type of thing going on with high school athletes, and I'd caution everyone to keep this in mind.
You, and your baseball player, may think it is great to get invited to go with some team to play in a big national tournament and have them pick up the tab. From my research, I've concluded the NCAA doesn't think it is so great, and if they find out about it, you risk having your amateur status stripped and losing out on the opportunity to play college baseball at any level.
This is something to keep in mind if you want to play college baseball.
Original Post