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NCAA Amateurism review questionnaire

H Homerun041,000+ posts
Interesting article from sportsagentblog.com:

NCAA Amateurism review questionnaire

The main reason why last week I wondered whether Karsten Whitson might be in trouble due to reports of his advisor having direct communication with the San Diego Padres, is because while there are much more pressing concerns for the NCAA to worry about in the other sports under its regulatory umbrella, the association continues to devote a substantial amount of time on baseball, and trying to enforce its no-agent rule. I have heard of players receiving phone calls and emails from NCAA personnel, asking a variety of questions. For the most part, these players have already been schooled by their advisors into how to answer the questions appropriately without inviting scrutiny towards themselves or their advisors. Not all players will be so lucky, and I assume that some will unfortunately tip off the NCAA unintentionally, and maybe sacrifice their student-athlete eligibility because of it.

I have been fortunate enough to receive an email that the NCAA has been sending out to its baseball student-athletes titled, NCAA Amateurism Review – Baseball. Imagine that you are a talented baseball player in college and you receive this email. Do you answer it with complete honesty? Do you answer it at all? How does something like this actually promote the benefits of going to college to high schoolers who are wondering whether they should sign with a team straight out of high school or go to college for a few years first? In light of the questionnaire, would an advisor ever be crazy enough to have a written agreement with his advisee?

—

Dear Baseball Prospective Student-Athlete:

This e-mail is being sent to gather initial information from you regarding your request for amateurism certification by the NCAA Eligibility Center. It is our staff’s understanding that you were selected by a Major League Baseball (MLB) club in the June 2010 Rule 4 Draft and have decided not to sign a professional contract. Please provide the following information relating to your contact with MLB clubs and your relationship with your advisor:

Provide the name and contact information (e-mail address and phone number) of your advisor.
Is your advisor an attorney?
Did your advisor have any direct communications with any MLB clubs on your behalf?
Did your advisor discuss your signability with any clubs?
Provide a detailed description of the services provided to you by your advisor (for example, discussions regarding your signability number, continuing in school versus signing a professional contract, contract offers, MLB questionnaires, medical history, performance, etc.):
Estimate the number of times you talked with your advisor.
Explain the subject matter of each of your conversations with your advisor.
List all individuals or entities, including MLB clubs, with whom your advisor spoke with on your behalf.
Have you ever agreed with your advisor that he would serve as your agent if you signed a contract with a club or if you are drafted again in the future?
Did your advisor provide anything to you or your family in addition to the services listed above (e.g., meals, transportation to showcases, tryout expenses)?
How much was the fee you paid for your advisor’s services?
What percentage of your signing bonus would your advisor have received had you signed? (This would have been discussed during your initial meeting(s) with your advisor).
If you have a written agreement with your advisor, please fax a copy of this agreement to 317-968-5103 as soon as possible (attn: Stephen Webb).
If you have a verbal agreement with your advisor, please provide a detailed description of the terms of this agreement. (What did you and your advisor agree he would do on your behalf?)
Did your advisor talk to the MLB club that drafted you regarding your contract offer?
List all individuals within the MLB organization that drafted you with whom you spoke after the 2010 draft.
Provide the name and contact information (e-mail address and phone number) of your area scout from the team that drafted you.
Please note that NCAA regulations require you to provide complete and accurate information to the NCAA Eligibility Center relating to your amateurism certification request. Any failure to do so could amount to an NCAA Bylaw 10.1 violation which would negatively affect your eligibility at NCAA institutions.

Please include your name in the subject line of the reply e-mail.

Finally, for the NCAA institutions that have received this e-mail (which was sent as a blast to ensure that the certification reviews began as soon as possible after this year’s signing deadline) – your institution has one or more of the baseball prospects to whom this e-mail is being sent on your active IRLs. If you would like to know which of your prospects received this e-mail, please feel free to contact the amateurism certification baseball inquiry line at 317/223-0707.
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TPMTPMHSBaseballweb Member since 2003
If you have an advisor and got that letter, you better call him and ask how you should answer those questions! crazy

Without getting into the pros and cons of if this is fair or not, and much above may seem like it might be ridiculous, I can see why the NCAA has come down hard, especially after being challenged in court a few times.

They want you to understand their rules, what YOU can and can't do (which means you have to be very careful who you choose as an advisor who is also an agent).

The advisor/agent who is knowlegable as to the process will not put you in a position which may cause you to lose your eligibility.
jerseydadjerseydad1,000+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by TPM:

They want you to understand their rules, what YOU can and can't do (which means you have to be very careful who you choose as an advisor who is also an agent).

The advisor/agent who is knowledgeable as to the process will not put you in a position which may cause you to lose your eligibility.


There’s the rub for me... how do we know for sure what the rules are? A lot of this stuff was very "grey" to me. I agree with you TPM but I know I was very frustrated in the process by the lack of support the player has available to him during the draft process. One of my biggest concerns was the fear of doing something wrong that might get my son in trouble with the NCAA.

My guy bypassed college ball so I don't know what they may or may not do to educate potential college draft choices about how to stay pristine during the draft process? I can tell you from a HS player’s perspective that I couldn’t really find anything from the NCAA to tell us what to watch out for that might cause the loss of eligibility (that I didn’t need a lawyer to interpret). The only sides we heard from regarding what was allowed came from MLB and advisors/agents (anyone else see the potential for trouble in this scenario) Smile .

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of the NCAA just sending out a questionnaire that reads like a bit of a witch hunt, maybe they should do some education to make sure that players are very clear on what is at risk and what the rules are? How hard would it be to send potential draft choices a FAQ sheet in plain English about what is allowed and what isn't during the draft process?

While my son's "advisor" never did any of the negotiations with a ML team and I thought we were pretty careful about not crossing the line… after reading that questionnaire I would say that he might have been subject to risk of not complying with NCAA rules. We were literally 24 hours away from my son showing up on campus, I would have been devastated if he would have decided to go to college instead of signing with a MLB team only to find out that he would potentially lose his eligibility because of answering yes to some of these questions. Based on my limited experience in talking to others that went through this process I have to tell you that I believe a large portion of HS players drafted would probably fail this test as well.

I understand that rules or rules however how about doing a bit more to educate these players/parents before hand? If the process was better defined to everyone then I wouldn’t be so troubled by seeing a questionnaire like the one that seems to be developed to catch players doing something wrong?

As I gently step down from my soap box...
Last edited by jerseydad
TPMTPMHSBaseballweb Member since 2003
Good points, JD, that's why I put YOU in caps. Smile

You cannot sign a prior agreement with an advisor/agent, you cannot agree to any terms or negotiate with an advisor/agent until you become a professional, you cannot have an advisor/agent negotiate your bonus directly with the team or have one present when doing so. You cannot accept gifts, lunch, even a cup of coffee with your advisor/agent. You cannot ask the advisor/agent to go back and find out what teams are thinking about you and what you will sign for or not (signability).

You can sit with an advisor/agent and discuss the process, he can guide you through that process as well, help you to understand what it might mean to sign out of HS vs out of college, what his fee might be if you sign, where he thinks with his knowledge where you might fall in the draft, what you might be looking at in terms of bonus. Use this opprtunity to learn more about the system and how ML baseball does it's business. Ask questions. Does the agent/advisor provide you support after you agree to sign a contract, does he come visit you, is he available 24/7 for help, does he set up a deal with equipment companies so you don't have to pay for anything, card deals, does he have a player on the 40 man roster, has he been to arbitration with any of them, who are his clients?

Are you responsible for advisors/agents speaking to scouts and teams about you, I don't think so, as long as it has not been upon your request, and made a prior agreement he will be your guy if you sign and without your knowledge, he cannot refer to you as his client. Advsors/agents inquire with teams about players all of the time, many just to contact them after they learn more about them.

In college, the compliance guy sits with you and let's you know what you can and cannot do, as well as they do not allow you to speak to advisors/agents without approval. That was son's case. I thought that HS payers now receive rules from the NCAA before the draft.

I agree with Rob, it's meant to protect the player as well as the program. I htink that tehy are trying to do a better job in educating players as to what they can do and what an advisor/agent can and cannot do. I didn't follow the draft this year, but when I did I didn't see a lot of advisors/agents speaking out on behalf of players like in the past. I am sure that it's done, but maybe more discreetly. Think they got the message that what they say or imply can come back to bite later on.

There is no excuse, IMO, if a drafted player sits with a team and his future agent is there, to state later on you didn't know it wasn't allowed. Or how about a player that tells an agent he will definetly use them, a better one comes along that says he can do more for you, you think the first guy is going to be happy? Who do you think he's going to run back to? I think that is what they are trying to avoid.

If the NCAA went on a witch hunt, misinterpreted everything, they would be short of players and this in turn hurts programs. Smile
Last edited by TPM

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