BOTN Industries has confirmed the rules modification with Colgate's athletics department, but we are still searching for the official NCAA details. When we have the official material, we will release the information as part of our College Board discussion.

AthleticBusiness.com and other sources have reported that a new law has taken effect in Connecticut with immediate effect that will require colleges to disclose exactly what student-athletes are agreeing to when they accept an athletic scholarship.

"The law, which passed the Connecticut House by a 140-to-3 vote and was unanimously approved in the Senate, seeks to keep recruits informed that scholarships are only good for one year and are subject to renewal at the discretion of the school. It also mandates full disclosure of how sports-related medical expenses are covered and what out-of-pocket expenses a student-athlete can expect to pay. Schools must post such details online."

The web site also notes that "similar legislation ... takes full effect next year in California."

I thought that college athletic scholarships could be pulled at the end of any year, for any student.

Is this law just forbidding any college from promising more than a single year commitment? Or is it just a "right-to-know" legislation that makes sure the colleges clarify to students and their parents that scholarships are technically for a single year only?

This also begs the question if a student athlete does poorly or has a tiff with their coach at the end of the fall season, do they have the right to talk to other schools about transferring, or do they have to ask their current college coach for permission?

No college is allowed to grant any terms in an athletic contract that extend beyond the current academic year by NCAA regulations. Hence, a verbal statement can be issued, but nothing in writing that is binding can be offered.

The main focus of this legislation appears to be a "need-to-know" issue to avoid recruiters and recruitment firms from misleading parents and players.

Reminder : the athletic terms are for a full year, not just the Fall Season when most soccer is in action. A student-athlete committed to a team has very specific rules and regulations that must be followed by NCAA standards regarding a request to explore an interview/visit to a transfer school. BOTN covered this topic in our NCAA thread earlier this season.

Transfer details replayed for our readers.

Amazingly in our three years of hosting the College Board, this is the first time we have had a rules question regarding collegiate transfers. First thing was to find the NCAA Reference Guide on the subject. The following link (Adobe Acrobat format) has the document for the 2010/2011 School Year.

Transfer 101 : Basic Information For Divisions I, II, III

Inside that document, the most important contact points are the following : Contact the NCAA Eligibility Center to determine your status - Go to www.eligibilitycenter.org or call 877/262-1492. To answer your question, Page 9 seems to be the critical point.

Written permission-to-contact
Generally, if you are enrolled as a full-time student at an NCAA or National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) four-year school and you want to transfer to a different NCAA school to play, your current school’s athletics director must give written permission-to-contact to the new coach or member of the athletics staff before you or your parents can talk with one of them. That is called having a permission-to-contact letter.

You may write to any NCAA school saying that you are interested in transferring, but the new coach must not discuss transfer opportunities with you unless he or she has received written permission-to-contact from your current school.

If your current school does not give you written permission-to-contact, another school cannot contact you and encourage you to transfer. This does not preclude you from transferring; however, if the new school is in Division I or II, you cannot receive an athletics scholarship until you have attended the new school for one academic year.

Also, if your current school officials deny your request to permit another institution to contact you about transferring, they must tell you in writing that you have a right to appeal the decision. In that instance, a panel of individuals from your current school who are not involved in athletics will conduct a hearing to decide the issue.

Do not talk to another school’s coach until you know the rules about receiving written permission.

When do you not need written permission-to-contact?
In Divisions I and II, if you are transferring from a school that is not a member of the NCAA or NAIA, you do not need written permission-to-contact.

Also, if you are now in Division III, you may issue your own release (called a self-release) to allow another Division III school to contact you about transferring. The self-release applies only to transfer student-athletes from a Division III school to another Division III school.

An Open Letter to Our BOTN College Forum Readers,

In a recent private message, we were asked about a few blog entries discussing recruitment on another web site. Specifically, we were asked about the value of that other site's information and how our BOTN advice compares.

Here on BOTN's College Forum, we have spent that last four years building your knowledge about the recruitment process by carefully enumerating the processes offered by many for-charge recruiting services to help families narrow down their academic and athletic selections. Our documented process does not cover just standardized test scores, but also academic performance, AP/IB courses, athletics, art/music skills, high school activities, leadership skills, volunteerism, community actions, and more. BOTN considers the education of the whole individual in the classroom and on the field of play.

We have covered communication techniques with college coaches from written letters to profile preparation, from NCAA rules and regulations for contact to closing that roster spot and eventual financial offers. BOTN offers advice to help young student-athletes view their target coach as a human being, not an anointed being. We offer practical advice that reminds players to keep the academics in focus for a college experience, above and beyond the soccer. BOTN knows that our recommended techniques work as we have employed these recommendations in the Region One Premier League, subregionals, and premier showcase tournaments.

Our College Forum is here to help players and parents every day of the year to get answers to every question, no matter how basic, no matter how complex. It is not a once-a-month set of paragraphs or a random set of unconnected thoughts. Instead, BOTN's College Forum is an ongoing dialogue led by you, our readers. We augment that dialogue with NCAA facts and figures, college details and previews, and real discussions from parents, like us, who have been through the recruitment wars.

If you have questions about the college process, regardless of how "simple" the question might seem, we encourage you to ask. We will offer documented answers while also soliciting input from parents and players in a similar situation.

So, coming back to the private message, other sites' contents are not often the grounds for editorial review here at BOTN Industries. Instead, we want to remain engaged with you, our readers, covering the core topics of college coaches, players, and the entire recruitment process. Our information is truthful, authentic, and validated.

Most importantly, trust that BOTN's College Forum is here : Always for free, always ready to help.

Sincerely,

BoardLord

BOTN Industries will be closing our 2010-2011 discussion thread at the end of July when our age groups all move up one year and many of our just graduated High School seniors head off to their first collegiate preseason camps. We wish all the young men and young women success at they head off to this next exciting step in life's journey.

If you are a High School student-athlete and have any questions for your summer or fall recruitment, please submit those queries now and BOTN Industries will be happy to help you.

We will be opening a fresh thread for the 2011/2012 season, our fourth year of BOTN Q&A, at the beginning of August for a new crop of high school freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

"boardlord" can you post the 2011 and 2012 Long Island College commitments and what programs they came from? It seems that the same few kids keep pumping out college players while others are just money makers. Seems like ISA, Albertson, BWG are the best programs if you want to play in college just want to see if this is supported by commitments.

The girls program has always had a Google site maintained with a very accurate log of what was happening in the NCAA recruiting cycles :

Women's Collegiate Recruiting Spreadsheet

In order to use the spreadsheet in the most flexible manner, we recommend running the display in its own window. To do this, you might find better success with the following link :

Women's Collegiate Recruiting Spreadsheet - New Window

Remember these links cover the girls programs only and we have never found a comparable presentation for boys recruiting.

If you use the "By Club" link from our links, you will see information about Albertson and many others. Remember that you will NOT see ISA or other training organizations in this listing as they are not proper clubs (ISA being a training organization, HBC being a club; PR being a training organization, Albertson being a club).

We hope that these links help you to answer all of your questions on the girls side.

BOTN Industries has found a couple of additional sites for the boy's side recruiting that you might want to consider :

ESPN Rise 2011 : Boys 2011 Division I Soccer Commitments

ESPN Rise 2012 : Boys 2012 Division I Soccer Commitments