Just because it's there...

...doesn't mean you have to use it.

I'm talking about text messaging. As I wrote about not too long ago, the NCAA DI committee voted to uphold the ban on text messages to recruits. I thought it was a good move, but others think it shows the fuddy-duddy side of the NCAA. An editorial in The Baltimore Sun says the ban flies in the face in the way things are today. I agree if the writer means by that sentiment that we seem to have constant instant access to one another. Email, pagers, cell phones, Blackberrys--all these in addition to old-fashioned phones which still exist in homes and businesses. If you can't be reached instantaneously, people start to worry or grumble.

But that's not what he means. The writer means that texting is now a way of life--for the younger generation anyway--and that coaches should be allowed to use it. Concerns over cost (to the receiver as well), harassment, volume, times of day can all be worked out, the editorialist states, with a little regulation and some common sense. Unfortunately common sense does not seem to rule the recruiting process as anyone who knows just a little about it is aware of. And this leads to all the regulations on the process. So now we're going to add more regulations.

Even if I could get over my disbelief at coaches using text lingo, I still find it an unnecessary recruiting tool. There are currently no limits on emails coaches can send to recruits and we still have things like telephones--cell and those attached to walls--and, yes it's true, letters. All those modes of communication lend themselves to conversations not snippets of abbreviated sentiments. If you're a recruit making a major decision about your future, I would think you would want to be talking to a coach in full sentences. If you're a coach, you may want a student-athlete who can communicate with adults (as s/he will have to do with professors, other staff, even the media) with full thoughts and real words, not abbreviations.