NC State Wolfpack

Definitions
 

Contact: A contact occurs any time a coach has any face-to-face contact with you or your parents off the college's campus and says more than hello. A contact also occurs if a coach has any contact with you or your parents at your high school or any location where you are competing or practicing.

Contact Period: During this time, a college coach may have in-person contact with you and/or your parents on or off the college's campus. The coach may also watch you play or visit your high school. You and your parents may visit a college campus and the coach may write and telephone you during this period.

Dead Period: The college coach may not have any in-person contact with you or your parents at any time in the dead period. The coach may write and telephone you or your parents during this time.

Evaluation: An evaluation is an activity by a coach to evaluate your academic or athletics ability. This would include visiting your high school or watching you practice or compete.

Evaluation Period: The college coach may watch you play or visit your high school, but cannot have any in-person conversations with you or your parents off the college's campus. You and your parents can visit a college campus during this period. A coach may write and telephone you or your parents during this time.

Official Visit: Any visit to a college campus by you and your parents paid for by the college. The college may pay the following expenses:
• Your transportation to and from the college;
• Room and meals (three per day) while you are visiting the college; and
• Reasonable entertainment expenses, including three complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest.

Before a college may invite you on an official visit, you will have to provide the college with a copy of your high school transcript (Division I only) and SAT, ACT or PLAN score and register with the NCAA Eligibility Center.

Prospective Student-Athlete: You become a "prospective student-athlete" when:
• You start ninth-grade classes; or
• Before your ninth-grade year, a college gives you, your relatives or your friends any financial aid or other benefits that the college does not provide to students generally.

Quiet Period: The college coach may not have any in-person contact with you or your parents off the college's campus. The coach may not watch you play or visit your high school during this period. You and your parents may visit a college campus during this time. A coach may write or telephone you or your parents during this time.

Unofficial Visit: Any visit by you and your parents to a college campus paid for by you or your parents. The only expense you may receive from the college is three complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest. You may make as many unofficial visits as you like and may take those visits at any time. The only time you cannot talk with a coach during an unofficial visit is during a dead period.

Verbal Commitment: This phrase is used to describe a college-bound student-athlete's commitment to a school before he or she signs (or is able to sign) a National Letter of Intent. A college-bound student-athlete can announce a verbal commitment at any time. While verbal commitments have become very popular for both college-bound student-athletes and coaches, this "commitment" is NOT binding on either the college-bound student-athlete or the school. Only the signing of the National Letter of Intent accompanied by a financial aid agreement is binding on both parties.

Student-Athlete: A student-athlete is a student who is enrolled at a four year institution and whose enrollment was solicited by a member of the athletics staff or other representative of athletics interests with a view toward the student's participation in the intercollegiate athletics program.

Extra Benefit: Any special arrangement by an institutional employee or a representative of its athletics interests to provide a student-athlete, their friends or their relatives with any benefits not expressly authorized by the NCAA. A benefit is not considered a violation if it is demonstrated that the same benefit is generally available to the institution's students or others determined on a basis unrelated to athletics ability.

Representatives of Athletics Interests: An individual, independent agency, corporate entity, or any organization who is known (or who should have been known), by a member institution's executive or athletics administration to:

• Have participated in or to be a member of an agency or organization promoting the institution's intercollegiate athletics program;

• Have made financial contributions to the athletics department or to an athletics booster organization of that institution;

• Be assisting or to have been requested (by the athletics department staff) to assist in the recruitment of prospects;

• Be assisting or to have assisted in providing benefits to enrolled student-athletes or their families; or

• Have been involved otherwise in promoting the institution's athletics program.

Once an individual is identified as such a representative, the person retains that identity indefinitely.

Recruiting: Any solicitation of a prospect or his/her family by an institutional staff member or by a representative of the institution's athletics interests for the purpose of securing the prospect's enrollment and participation in the institution's athletics program.

Activities that constituting recruitment include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Providing transportation to the prospect to visit the campus

• Entertaining the prospect in any way on campus. However, the institution may provide a complimentary admission to an on-campus athletic contest when the prospect is visiting as a member of a group tour that is unrelated to athletic recruitment

• Initiating or arranging telephone contact with the prospect or his on more than one occasion family for the purpose of recruitment

• An arranged, off-campus encounter with a prospect or any members of their family for the purpose of recruitment

• Entertaining the family members of a prospect on campus

• Sending correspondence to a prospect, other than a generic letter that requests general information

• The arrangement of meals, housing, transportation or academic interviews during an unofficial visit.