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The cabinet recently released a broad view of the different paths those rules could take, and is weighing responses as it considers future legislation. "We've received a lot of feedback from the membership about their frustrations with recruiting issues coming at them year after year," says Petrina Long, Chair of the Recruiting Cabinet and Senior Associate Athletics Director at UCLA. "We've been frustrated as a cabinet because we have to respond to any proposed recruiting legislation and we've seen it focus more and more on minutiae. So we're taking a step back to look at the core problems."

The cabinet identified four areas involving recruiting--evaluations (both academic and athletic), communication, campus visits, and financial aid. Then, it provided broad outlines of what the rules would look like in each area based on three regulative models--restrictive, moderate, and open. Click here to see the models.

For example, a restrictive model might result in rules that could require any financial aid to come from a school's financial aid office and/or only allow offers to be made during a high school athlete's senior year. An open model would leave the rules as they are now.

According to Long, the lack of specificity concerning potential rules is part of the process. "We have taken very broad swipes," she says. "Now we've given the membership the opportunity to look at what we framed and provide the initial feedback that will allow us to hone into specific topics that they have prioritized.

"Even though we've tried to be broad, we get requests to be more specific," she continues. "Compliance coordinators and coaches will point at something and say, 'That's not going to work. Someone will push the edge of that envelope and cross the line into something that was not intended.' But our job is not necessarily to come up with a perfect answer as a cabinet. Our job is to frame the issues so the membership can identify their priorities."

Although the models are presented by their level of regulation, Long emphasizes that any future proposals will not need to be bundled in the same way. She says the cabinet finds that some people want strict measures in communicating with prospective student-athletes and loose regulations on evaluations--while other people want the exact opposite.

"We're not looking at choosing one model over another," she says. "We're looking at what concepts the majority of people feel are workable and doable. That's where we're going to focus our efforts."

The cabinet will meet June 8-9 to look at the feedback provided by the NCAA membership as well as other groups, such as coaches' and administrators' associations. There will be four main factors as the cabinet examines the various proposals. "We're certainly paying close attention to student-athlete well-being during the recruiting process, so that these kids won't be hounded to death or forced to make decisions," says Long. "Second, many coaches and administrators, though not all, feel the concept of having 24/7/365 recruiting is a little bit overbearing, so we'll try to consider balancing coaches' lives so they're not having to recruit every minute of every day. And cost-containment is a very important concept for athletic directors and administrators.

"The fourth piece we'll consider is compliance," Long continues. "We can set all kinds of new legislation, but if the rules are unenforceable or can't be monitored, that's a big problem."

Long says she fully expects new legislation to result from this effort and it's possible that some proposals may even emerge from the June meeting. But the bulk of the legislative proposals will take to longer to develop. "We'll meet again in September, and based on the feedback we've received, we'll continue to refine the areas that seem to be of highest priority," she says.

Long expects some of the discussion will center on newer topics that create many of the ongoing legislative proposals, such as early scholarship offers and electronic communications with prospective student-athletes. "We recognize that we can no longer respond to every new technological advance after the fact--that doesn't make for good legislation," she says. "We haven't been able to develop a more progressive approach yet, so that will probably be one of the areas where you see greater differences than in the past."

Recruiting is one area where changes made by the NCAA will have a trickle-down effect for high school coaches and administrators, and Long says the cabinet would welcome the opportunity to find out what people think about the recruiting process and how it can best be governed. "Their feedback is very important," she says, "and we'd love to know whether they think we're on the right track. They can share their thoughts with us either directly through the NCAA or through their various coaches associations."

Dennis Read is Associate Editor at Athletic Management.