Text messaging banned

It’s Monday at the NCAA convention, the day in which Division III member schools vote on the various legislative proposals.

It’s not a day in which they will vote on whether to split into two divisions. We have at least another year before that happens, and perhaps more, since we’ve heard discussion that it may be delayed from its planned 2009 convention date. But there are other proposals on the docket as well that will have an impact on Division III.

Division III members voted overwhelmingly to ban text messaging to prospective recruits. Or, more specifically, they voted to limit electronic transmission of correspondence with recruits to e-mail and faxes. So, no text messages, no Facebook/MySpace, no IMs, etc. It passed by a vote of 362-72 with two abstentions, with good turnout from Division III schools.

A proposal to allow student-athletes to work at schools’ camps passed overwhelmingly as well, 425-13 with two abstentions.

Further proposals of note got voted down, then withdrawn. A proposal to allow provisional Division III members to be counted toward meeting a league’s seven-member automatic bid requirements failed 252-185-7. This was a proposed amendment to another proposal that was then withdrawn. Another proposal, to lift the ban on new single-sport conferences, was pulled from the agenda. This primarily affects women’s ice hockey but could have a football impact as well.

There’s more news that primarily affects basketball, which we’ve covered in the D3hoops.com Daily Dose.

It’s important to note that, while many people assume that rules in Division III come down from the NCAA national office as if engraved on stone tablets, in fact Division III schools vote on all legislation and the membership shapes the rules.

3 thoughts on “Text messaging banned

  1. Not that I know of at this level, but high-level prospects in Division I were getting deluged with text messages, causing overages on cellphone bills, interrupting class, etc. It makes sense to ban them NCAA-wide but each division had to act independently.

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