A couple of weeks ago we highlighted some apparent recruiting violations committed by UConn students in this post.
In the entry we focused on the disconnect between WRAL’s omission of coverage of substantial recruiting issues at UConn when compared to their historical coverage of making monstrous mountains out of molehills when NC State fans “FaceBook’d” John Wall and CJ Leslie in the past.
It is hard to imagine that a little FaceBook group started by a random fan – that could have been a thirteen year old child – merits a mention in the news as it did to WRAL’s Ryan Craig on February 23rd.
What is harder to imagine is that WRAL has now written more than a half dozen articles/entries on FaceBook groups started by fans, but doesn’t seem to have a clue about verified NCAA violations related to FaceBook within the Atlantic Coast Conference such as what just happened with Mike London at Virginia.
Virginia football commits secondary violation
Virginia football committed a secondary NCAA violation when Coach Mike London posted directly onto the Facebook wall of prospective recruit Curtis Grant. Virginia is in the process of reporting the violation to the NCAA, according to the school’s compliance office.
Coaches are allowed to correspond with prospective players via Facebook, but not post directly on their walls. All communication through social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.) must be direct one-to-one private communication, which is viewed as a form of e-mail.
London was not available for comment, but it was considered by Virginia’s compliance office as an “honest mistake” because London “believed he was privately messaging the prospective student-athlete as opposed to writing on the prospective student-athlete’s wall,” Steve Flippen, Virginia’s assistant athletic director for compliance, wrote in an e-mail.
According to the NCAA, secondary violations are “isolated or inadvertent in nature, provides or is intended to provide only a minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage and does not include any significant recruiting inducement or extra benefit.”
So…in review….
Stories meriting coverage related to both FaceBook and local schools/players at WRAL:
(1) Unverified NC State fans start a FaceBook page focused on John Wall
(2) Unverified NC State fans start a FaceBook page focused on CJ Leslie
Stories NOT warranting coverage related to FaceBook, the internet and local schools/players:
(1) Verified UConn students break NCAA rules to court CJ Leslie
(2) Verified NCAA violations by ACC Football Coach, Mike London
(3) Verified Tennessee football player publicly calls out recruiting practices by John Blake at UNC-CH on FaceBook saying, “UNC tried to bribe me” (Link)
(4) Explosive verified property & legal records linking UNC supporters to Wayne Ellington while a student at UNC-CH. (Link)
You get the picture?
