Why do colleges provide only partial list of signed athletes?

quote:

Originally posted by gamefan:
I just looked at websites for Elon and Georgetown, who recently announced their 2015 recruiting class. To my knowledge, both of these lists were incomplete. I know of two players who committed to Elon who weren't on Elon's list and a player who has committed to Georgetown who wasn't on the list.

Any insight?

Not sure why..but I have noticed that 6-10 players are listed and 14-16 are recruited. Are some players preferred walk-ons? Are several coming on board with no scholarship offer? Did some sign late and therefore got left off the list? My son verbally committed after he was given a scholarship offer in November. He missed the early signing and is not listed on the website. They can not list him until he signs in April. Not sure the answer to your question, but like you I have noticed that some kids are not listed.

hrkb, you have some things correct. Preferred walk ons don't sign national letter of intents, so they don't get listed on the web site. One of those good ole NCAA rules. The really irritating one is the kid who commits to a university based on academic scholarship or some other avenue, but doesn't take baseball money and then can't be listed with the guy who gets a 25% baseball scholarship. Honestly, it doesn't matter. If players are worried about their names not being on the website, they are worried about the wrong things anyway.

illini fan,

I agree! My son is very happy and honored to be an NCAA athlete and is not worried about being listed. I didn't realize they couldn't list players if the money didn't come from baseball. That's too bad since they are all equally deserving. Like you said, it really doesn't matter and there are more important things to worry about.

I don't know gamefan, but his other posts indicate a general interest in kids from his area. I really don't think he was sweating about lack of recognition for his kid--after all, he was asking about three kids at two schools. He was just asking what's up and trying to keep up. He didn't deserve any holier-than-thou put downs.

The NCAA does allow colleges to list non-NLI commits if the player/athlete has been accepted to the school, and has signed an "Institutional Letter of Intent" for the school.

Not meaning to call him out at all. Just simply stating a point. It was not directed at him or anyone for that matter. Only saying that, "it doesn't really matter". Sorry to ruffle feathers. Rob, you may be correct, but most don't go through the process simply to recognize the preferred walk ons on the web site. I think I made it clear that they "should be" but aren't and it doesn't make that much of a difference.

I agree that it absolutely doesn't matter. It's just an oddity that a school would recruit 8-10 players but only list 5. And Swampboy, you're right. This isn't about my kid - just a general interest about kids I know who I think should have gotten the recognition from their school and I'm curious why they didn't. In some ways it seems confusing to prospective athletes who think there may me more room on the team next year for recruits.

This occurred with 2 of my sons long-time teammates on his summer team who were recruited to the same school. They both had approximately the same dollar amount in scholarship money. One had all baseball money and was listed as an early signer. The other had academic money and FA and was never listed. Both are on the team roster listed for the Spring 2011.

quote:

Originally posted by gamefan:
I just looked at websites for Elon and Georgetown, who recently announced their 2015 recruiting class. To my knowledge, both of these lists were incomplete. I know of two players who committed to Elon who weren't on Elon's list and a player who has committed to Georgetown who wasn't on the list.

Any insight?

gamefan,

Great question. Is it possible they have not signed NLIs yet, will be recruited walk-ons, or are receiving academic money?

I know two players that were mentioned by the Elon and Georgetown announcements. I know both signed NLIs to their respective schools.

Fenway, Although I am not positive, I believe that both Elon players signed NLIs and received scholarships (athletic and academic). The Georgetown player received a LL. I read on another thread that Georgetown does not always admit ED from a LL. So, I don't know if this player is waiting for RD in April, and therefore can't be listed yet by Georgetown. I didn't think Georgetown did a NLI because they had likely letters. It is a quandary!

TPM - 2015 is the year the players entering in September 2011 will graduate.

quote:

Fenway, Although I am not positive, I believe that both Elon players signed NLIs and received scholarships (athletic and academic). The Georgetown player received a LL. I read on another thread that Georgetown does not always admit ED from a LL. So, I don't know if this player is waiting for RD in April, and therefore can't be listed yet by Georgetown. I didn't think Georgetown did a NLI because they had likely letters. It is a quandary!

gamefan,

It is hard to figure this one out. I'll give it a shot. First, level set on terms.

NLI signing is an NCAA process where the player commits to receiving first scholarship year money when he plays a sport.

ED is Early Decision admissions by a college. It is admissions binding. This is not an NCAA process. Coaches urge many of their recruits to apply ED, as the admissions pool is smaller and it "locks them up".

LL is a Likely Letter which is used by Ivy schools to compete with the NLI process. Ivy athletes do not get athletic scholarships. Admissions for LL athletes is almost 100% guaranteed. This is not an NCAA process. It is specific to Ivys, and possibly the Patriot League has a similiar process. If you are aware of other schools offering something like a LL, I'd really like to know.

With that said, I don't understand why Georgetown would do an NLI and LL. They can most certainly offer atheltic scholarships which would include the NLI process. So, I'm saying there is no need for a LL. If he was ED deferred into RD, then that makes 100% sense. So it is possible he signed an NLI but didn't get accepted into the school yet. I've heard rare cases of this happening.

As for the Elon players, I just don't know. More info is needed.

quote:

To my knowledge, both of these lists were incomplete. I know of two players who committed to Elon who weren't on Elon's list and a player who has committed to Georgetown who wasn't on the list.

Working on a website at work right now. Could be something as simple as the webmaster doesn't have all the info. Happens all the time.

Also, seems to me that one would say 2011 recruiting class, 2015 graduating class. But that's just semantics - neither here nor there.

Bang! 2Bmom is spot on, its most likely that web administators are not keeping pace with updates, or coaches are not keeping pace with moving the signings over to the web administrators.

Nope, that doesn't explain news articles on the baseball home website.

Sure it does. Most likely the coaches aren't doing the writing and posting, and website content is probably way down on their list of priorities. Whoever writes the article or the post is working on information they have at that time. It might be outdated or incomplete.

quote:

If players are worried about their names not being on the website, they are worried about the wrong things anyway.

This is the bottom line. It's the agreement between the coach/school and the player that's important, not what's posted on the website. Recognition on websites or newspapers or blogs is all well and good, but it is not what counts. I would also guess that it's not the player, but the parent who is doing the worrying.

If it happens to my son and it's important to me, I'll send someone a note and get it corrected or updated.

I have a real hard time believing that the coach/webmaster would be too busy for something as important as this. Despite what you and I think, it does mean something to the players and their families. These players have worked very hard to get to where they are. When a college is introducing a new class (2015) of players to the team, alumni and followers I just can't believe a coach would be too busy to not include ALL eligible players' names in the "spotlight".

I agree that sometimes Coaches do forget things, or websites are not updated. Oversights happen. I can understand some stats or a game summary being late, but not something important like an entire class introduction IMHO.

Hopefully, we'll find out what happened here.

quote:

Originally posted by gamefan:
I just looked at websites for Elon and Georgetown, who recently announced their 2015 recruiting class. To my knowledge, both of these lists were incomplete. I know of two players who committed to Elon who weren't on Elon's list and a player who has committed to Georgetown who wasn't on the list.

Any insight?

Got confused about the use of dates. The graduating class of 2015 is quite different than the recruited and signed class of 2011.

You don't see those names because they didn't get athletic money. You may think they did, the parents may want you to think they did, but most likely they didn't, if their name was not there. Nowadays there are many players that get committments from coaches without an NLI.

You can announce a player's signing before he is actually admitted, that has nothing to do with it, you don't see the names because they didn't receive scholarships in the form of athletic money. No athletic money no NLI, no mention of name until they enter school and join the team.

This only occurs in schools where they award NLI.

Not sure how this will be received, but I am thinking some/many won't agree.
For whatever it is worth, Stanford does not announce NLI signees. Of course some information gets out, but not through the baseball release or website posting.
They get some awfully good players who do quite well.
Of course I am looking at this in the rear view mirror on the "importance" and "extent" of importance of the NLI.
I continue to question the extent of the public"importance" placed NLI signings.
In football/basketball the media is creating and perpetuating an industry, probably a lucrative one at that on football/basketball.
For BA, Rivals and the like, for baseball, they do something similar, to a lesser extent.
I am not questioning the importance of the NLI, just the "extent" to which it seems to "take on" on importance.
Is it important to the player? Yes. The parents, brothers and sisters? Yes. Teammates and HS coaches and friends? Probably. Someone on another Coast or in another State, City or County? I question that.

For me, I would much rather read something about the player and where he is in the program as of February of the Freshman year in college. This type of information for incoming freshman is nearly non-existent.
For some reason, the NLI is "major" and getting "bigger" but what happens about 14 months later can pale in comparison, from a publicity and acknowledgment perspective.
I dunno...looked at in my rear view mirror, I continue to ask whether the the extent of the publicity around the NLI is a "good" thing.

Thanks TPM. Not beating a dead horse - it's just interesting to me. I thought Georgetown was under sanction and couldn't give any athletic money to baseball players due to NCAA violations. That must have expired with this incoming recruited class. No dog in this particular fight...just learning as I go.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
No athletic money no NLI, no mention of name until they enter school and join the team.

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, but the NCAA does not require the signing of an NLI in order to publicize.
13.10.9 Media releases regarding signing. Publicity released by an institution concerning a prospective student-athlete’s commitment to attend the institution shall occur only after the prospective student-athlete has signed a National Letter of Intent or after the prospective student-athlete’s signed acceptance of the institution’s written offer of admission and/or financial aid.....
The player needs to have signed an acceptance of one of the following
1) a NLI,
2) an offer of financial aid (which does not need to be athletic nor does it need to be 25% if it isn't countable), or
3) an offer of admission.

Even a school which participates in the NLI program may choose to publicize the signing (but not a NLI) of an athlete. For example, players who are very well off financially are candidates to sign with baseball program, but without accepting any countable aid. The college may well want to publicize that the player has signed an offer of admission.

Ok thanks for that clarification and that may explain it further, the students moight not have been admitted yet nor have they signed for their financial aid which would mean no mention until those occur.

The above has nothing to do with the early signing period.

Good point made above many programs do not officially announce their players until they actually show up.

The reason is that the kid is not committed to the college/university in any way without a NLI and listing their names along with a designation that they are a walk on is an invitation to other coaches to make them a better offer. think like a coach.

quote:

Sure it does. Most likely the coaches aren't doing the writing and posting, and website content is probably way down on their list of priorities. Whoever writes the article or the post is working on information they have at that time. It might be outdated or incomplete.

Perhaps, but I don't understand that because it is a big thing to the recruit and "press" for the University.

Coaches from PrimeJr's team had solicited info, from us, for the signing press release long before the first day of early signing. His NLI had to be faxed at exactly 7am that fateful day last November and his press release was on their site within hours!

Six High School players were recruited that year and all their articles were released within the week of early signing.

I look at alot of College Athletic web sites, and like most people, make first impressions about their program based on what and how info is presented.

I went to son's former program, as usual there is no mention of november signings for 2011 graduation class.

There is mention of those who signed and graduated in 2010 the article is dated 09/01/10.
I went there to check to see if things had changed, as son was not announced on their official website years ago when he first signed.

Perhaps there are press releases out there somewhere, but it is not on the official site.