Summit: Remarks by Gerald Turner
10) Recruiting: Ethics and athlete welfare during the recruiting process. Remarks by Gerald Turner
Transcript: PDF.
Video: Windows Media File. Quick Time.
GERALD TURNER: I believe we’re ready to start the second panel. The second panel is entitled, Ethics and Student Welfare During the Recruiting Process.
I’m Gerald Turner, vice-chair of the Knight Commission. I’m president of SMU and am joined by a number of my colleagues on the Knight Commission. And so we’ll conduct this panel much like the last one in which we’ll have remarks from each of the individuals who have agreed to visit with us today as a part of this presentation. And then when they are completed, then we’ll have questions form the panelists here. And we’ll see how that goes and this is scheduled to last about an hour and forty-five minutes as was the other one. So as informative as the first one was, I think you will find this one also to be instructive.
I’ll introduce members of our panel, on my left, your right, as they are asked to make their presentation. And so you will be meeting them as they go. Each has been asked to make four to five minutes of comments regarding issues regarding, concerning recruiting.
In times past, the major concerns of those in higher education were simply to make sure that boosters were in line and that friends of your program were not being too involved at all with the recruitment of student-athletes and that the basic rules that we all agreed upon as an association were followed.
But life has gotten a lot more complex in the last decade or so with the creation of websites that follow high school recruiting to where high school student-athletes are now known nationally before they ever sign with a college or a university simply by the proliferation of these sites.
With the growth in club programs that are outside both the high school and the NCAA or the colleges and universities making up the NCAA and the influence of these coaches upon the decisions of young men and women as they decide, and they and their parents decide which direction these student-athletes should go.
And then also of course the influence of just shoe companies and others who are in the commercial world but trying to influence the attitudes of these student-athletes long before they get to the university.
So with the usual sources of influence and our worries about them, certainly recruiting and making sure that the recruiting is done ethically and with the best welfare of the student-athletes and their families in mind, has become an even greater challenge as we go.
And so to begin our dialog on this today, our first presenter is Myron Rolle, who just graduated this December from Hun High School in Princeton, New Jersey.
He was a 4.0 student. He’s enrolled at Florida State University, where he’s a first year student just beginning his collegiate career. He’s a defensive back, was one of the top in the country, he’s accompanied by his father, Whitney Rolle, and his mother Beverly, who are here to provide him support and encouragement also. So, Myron, we’re delighted to have you with us and look forward to your comments.
