The Non-Traditional Booster

How does an "outsider" of an institution's athletics program become a representative of athletics interest (a.k.a. booster) under NCAA rules? How does a college or university monitor these individuals? Beware: The identification of boosters may not be as easy as it used to be. Recent decisions by the NCAA Committee on Infractions (the "Committee") have surprised some observers by determining that various individuals with close ties to a prospective student-athlete have evolved into a booster of that institution based primarily on their interaction with the institution's coaches.

Who is a Booster?

The NCAA defines representatives of an institution's athletics interests as individuals who are known or should be known by an institution's executive or athletics administration to be assisting or to have been requested to assist in the recruitment of prospects or to have been involved otherwise in promoting the university's athletics interests. The vast majority of boosters are individuals already identified by the institution as one of their representatives by virtue of their financial contribution or other close association with the athletics department, student-athletes or staff.

There is also another type of booster that has been classified as non-traditional boosters. These are individuals who have usually become boosters due to their involvement in an NCAA infractions matter. They had no pre-existing association with the institution and their motivation for violating rules was relationship-driven (with coaches, prospects and student-athletes) and, unlike traditional boosters, not based on loyalty to a particular school. These non-traditional boosters are not easy to monitor because they operate outside of the institution's compliance radar, which targets the traditional booster population for education of NCAA rules. These individuals are described in the following infractions reports: Pittsburgh (1993), Michigan State (1996), Georgia (1997), Notre Dame (1999), Wisconsin (2001), and Michigan (2003).

Recent Committee Decisions Find Amateur Team Sponsors or High School Coaches Can Become Boosters

In the April 2004 Auburn University infractions report, the major issue was whether the sponsor of a summer league basketball team had started to operate as a booster of Auburn's men's basketball program. The Committee deemed that the sponsor did become a representative of the university's athletics interests because the "circumstances [of the case] demonstrated the close working relationship between the men's basketball staff and the team sponsor" during the institution's recruitment of two high-profile prospects that were members of his summer team. The Committee's rationale for its decision included an extensive analysis of the circumstances it will weigh in determining when an "outsider" has attained booster status. The report also mentioned that whenever an amateur team or high school coach becomes a representative of an institution's athletics interests, institutional responsibility for the booster's actions will ensue if the actions were intended to benefit or did benefit a particular institution.

In November 2004, the Committee re-emphasized this message about coaches' interaction with others close to a prospect in its infractions report regarding the University of Missouri men's basketball case. The Committee noted that when an institution's basketball coach asked a high school coach to pay the travel expenses of a prospect to visit Missouri's campus (which he did), the high school coach could have been regarded as (but was not found to be) a booster, and encouraged readers to review its Auburn report for the "principles" it established in that report. [Note: In the Missouri case, the Committee's report noted that it could not make a finding because there was no allegation that the high school coach was a representative of Missouri's athletics interest.] Additionally, in its October 2004, Mississippi State University infractions report, the Committee found an assistant high school coach to be a booster of the institution for his role in passing money to a prospect on behalf of the institution's assistant football coach.

What is the message of these reports? It is simple. The involvement/interaction during the recruiting process between an institution's coaches and an individual who is close to a prospect may transform that individual into a booster of your school, even though that person had a pre-existing relationship with the prospect that was unrelated to the institution's athletics interests.

Potential Issues for NCAA Schools

The Committee's findings that summer-league team sponsors could become boosters sent some ripples through the NCAA compliance community because these individuals pose a unique threat. Unlike most of the non-traditional boosters named in past infractions cases, whose involvement in a case was often the sunrise and sunset of their institutional relationship, amateur team sponsors/coaches and high school coaches are fixtures of the recruiting culture and college coaches often believe nurturing a good and ongoing relationship with them is essential to effective recruiting.

This environment may well lead to some significant issues in light of the Committee's decision. NCAA recruiting rules ban contact between boosters and prospects for recruiting purposes. However, contact between amateur team coaches/sponsors and prospects is inevitable. Because these individuals may not have any natural or obvious ties to particular schools, institutions do not regard them as boosters or target them for booster education programs. Yet, if these individuals are subsequently found to have evolved into boosters, schools may very well be held accountable for their actions. Furthermore, effective monitoring of the interaction between an assistant coach and amateur team or high school coaches is a challenging proposition for the compliance office.

Committee Guidelines for Evaluating Institutional Responsibility

In the Auburn report, the Committee recognized the dilemma the NCAA membership may perceive if it has to regard amateur team or high school coaches as potential boosters. It also recognized these parties may have motives for assisting a prospect that are not attributable to the institution's interests and acknowledged that it will mitigate institutional responsibility when the booster's intentions may have been for another purpose. Accordingly, the Committee set forth six guidelines that it will use when examining institutional responsibility "in the conduct" of amateur team representatives or others with regular contact with prospects:

(a) the extent to which the institution knew or should have known of the conduct of the institutional representative;

(b) the extent to which the institution knew or should have known of the pattern of conduct by the institution's representative and its impact on the amateur status of the prospective student-athlete;

(d) the frequency and duration of the conduct;

(e) the value of the benefits; and

(f) the extent to which the conduct of the institutional representative might have been prompted by intentions in addition to those of assisting the institution.

The most important of these to an institution are the first three. The common denominator in each of these three factors is institutional knowledge (of the conduct or pattern of behavior) and involvement in the conduct. If institutional responsibility is not established using the first three guidelines, it is hard to envision a situation where it would be assigned based only on the three remaining factors listed, although it is possible other violations could still be found.

What types of conduct trigger an "outsider" to be considered a non-traditional representative? When applying the six-point test in the context of the Auburn findings, the collaboration between the basketball coaching staff and team sponsor to provide round-trip transportation (both via air and automobile), lodging and meal expense at no cost to the prospect was a major component of the Committee's rationale that the sponsor became a representative of the university's athletics interest. Thus, the coaches' overall interaction with this sponsor crossed the line of mere relationship building and resembled more of a recruiting partnership.

Preventative Measures: Monitoring and Communication

Therefore, from an institutional perspective it is imperative that staff members involved in the recruiting process understand that once an amateur team or a high school coach is inserted in the institution's recruiting efforts that individual may become a booster. Open and timely communication between coaches and compliance staff about the role others close to a prospect are playing in the recruiting process and how they are interacting with your coaches and staff will help identify potential problems early and avoid a major violation from occurring later. For more information, contact Mark Jones or Carrie McCaw.