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U.Va. Football's Facebook Recruiting Violation Highlights Thicket of Social Media Rules

By Bruce Carton

Just when University of Virginia head football coach Mike London thought he had those Internets figured out, along comes some crazy NCAA Facebook rule to further complicate things. The Daily Press reports that London was trying to send a message to Curtis Grant, a senior linebacker he was recruiting out of Richmond, Virginia. London posted his message to Grant on the recruit's Facebook "Wall" page, however (accidentally, he says), which is not permitted under NCAA rules. U.Va.'s assistant athletics director for compliance, Steve Flippen, explained that under the NCAA's somewhat baffling social media rules, "all postings from coaches to prospective recruits on social networking sites must be made in a direct person-to-person, non-public manner." That means that a coach can "privately message" a prospect on Facebook, but cannot publicly post a message on their wall, he said. London says he thought he was sending a private message, but posted on the Wall by mistake. Doh! U.Va. is now communicating with the NCAA regarding a penalty for this offense, but believes the NCAA will interpret this secondary violation as "minor in nature." A quick look at some of the other NCAA rules now emerging on social media and recruiting reveals a...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on May 03, 2010 (boomark / email).