CECIL HURT: Technology keeps coaches one step ahead of the NCAA

Now that we are firmly entrenched in 2007, one thing is becoming clear in college athletics: the 21st century is going to find you, whether you want it to or not.

Ask Houston Nutt, the head coach at Arkansas. Ask the NCAA. Even ask around at the University of Alabama athletic department.

There has been a technological revolution in this country over the past 15 years, and it has manifested itself in a number of ways, both wonderful and, at times, a little scary. Nutt recently found himself on the scary end of things when a private citizen -- or self-proclaimed “private journalist" -- named Thomas MacAfee asked for the cellular phone records of Nutt and Nutt’s brother, Danny, an assistant coach at Arkansas. Since Nutt’s cell phones are paid for by the University of Arkansas, school adminitrators decided that they did indeed fall under the Freedom of Information act, and MacAfee got the records.

He didn’t find what he was originally seeking, which involved contact between Nutt and wayward Razorback quarterback Mitch Mustain. He did find a lot of other things, though -- including more than a thousand text messages between Nutt and a Fort Smith television news anchor named Donna Bragg, including some that were sent less than an hour before kickoff in the Razorbacks’ bowl games. All this is according to quotes from MacAfee in the Searcy Daily Citizen.

What does it all mean? That’s been a hard thing for the mainstream media to decipher so far. But it certainly means that other outlets will start looking at text message and e-mail records more closely. The Tuscaloosa News has pursued -- and received -- phone records of coaches before, particularly in connection with the 2000-01 NCAA investigation. Would Alabama law also allow all text messages and e-mails to be made public? I don’t know, but I suspect some media outlet will launch a trial balloon, and do it sooner rather than later.

Even without that episode of “As The Hogs Turn" to ponder, text messaging has attracted attention from another area -- the NCAA. Beginning on Monday, the NCAA Management Council will consider a proposal from the Ivy League which would make text messaging to recruits in all sports illegal.

Currently, it’s legal -- and wildly popular, since text messages do not fall under the same restrictions as telephone calls. Alabama certainly uses it, as they should.

For instance, Ohio quarterback prospect Cliff Stoudt recently told a recruiting service (Scout.com) that “I just talked to Nick Saban at Alabama... They sent a text message and I called them back. They are really interested in me." Since Stoudt initiated the actual phone call, it doesn’t count against Alabama. That’s smart, cutting-edge recruiting.

(In fact, one person who would know at the UA athletics department said that one of the first things Saban changed upon his arrival was Alabama’s outdated recruiting questionnaire, which asked only for a home phone and address, not a cell number and e-mail address.)

Sometimes, it goes too far. One of the violations that got Rick Neuhisel in NCAA trouble at Colorado was a ploy where he got around an NCAA “no-contact" period by sitting in his car in front of a prospect’s house and chatting with the prospect – who was 50 feet away on his front porch -- via cell phone.

The basis for the proposal that the NCAA will consider isn’t based on antics like that. It’s more concerned with the time that recruits spend reading and responding to text messages, the related privacy concerns for top recruits who are inundated by messages, and the possible cost for recruits who have to pay, at some point, for text messages they receive.

Rest assured, as quickly as the NCAA, or anyone else, comes up with a regulation on technology, the technology will change. (The Nick Saban weekly podcast can’t be far away.) The key, apparently, is to stay on the cutting edge -- but to do it carefully.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0225.