DeMario Pressley remembers the days when his cell was assailed daily with text messages from numerous college coaches, each hoping to eventually land a commitment from the highest-sought defensive tackle in 2004 class.
At that time, texting itself was under-the-radar on the national scene. There were few, if any, unlimited texting plans. And when it came to recruiting high school athletes, the new form of communication was unregulated.
Pressley said he received text messages at all times of the day every day, that is until the monthly bill became too much to handle.
“I received a lot of them to the point where my bill kept getting overrun, so my mom took text messaging off my phone,” Pressley said. “I think it was eight cents [per text], and that adds up quickly. One time it was 30 dollars. Then you add that on top of my friends and stuff.”
Future college recruits may not have to go through the same expenditures that Pressley did, and it won’t be because of a different wireless plan.
In April this year, the NCAA decided to do away with text messaging from the recruiting scene starting Aug. 1, ending the popular form of communication from a coach’s courtship of a player. But according to the Associated Press, the college sports sanctioning body will discuss the possibility of lifting the ban at an Aug. 9 meeting.
There is no constraint on how many times a player can call a coach, but there is one on how many times a coach can call a player. ESPN had reported that coaches were using text messaging as a loophole to contact players without counting against the phone call limit, often texting “call me” to prospects.
This method was a major point in the argument to rid text messaging from recruiting.
However, despite all the texts that Pressley received, he couldn’t recall a time where he had been asked to call any recruiter in a text. Instead, he said the messages were conversational, centering around that particular college.
“It would be just us talking football and talking about their team and stuff and what happened that Saturday or something,” Pressley said.
By ruling the way it did, the NCAA may have ended the more convenient way of contacting recruits. Pressley said he had preferred texting to phone calls when he was being recruited.
“I’d rather have text messages than phone calls because if I’m at work or I’m maybe in class or something, I can just answer it then,” Pressley said. “Where a phone call requires a lot more time.”
E-mails and faxes are not included in the ban, but both will be limited.
