NCAA rules on twitter

Twitter isn't only a fad for the facebook generation. Coaches are getting in on the act too - Tom Crean, John Calipari, Gary Williams, and Jim Larrananga are just a few of the notables.

As with any new technology, the NCAA needs to develop new rules as to how coaches can use it when dealing with recruits.

Or so you would think.

Ryan Corraza of ESPN the Mag got the scoop:

I called the NCAA yesterday to get the skinny, and here's what I found: Crean is right. Any type of chatter back and forth via @replies that can be viewed in the public domain is not allowed. However, direct messaging on Twitter -- which can only be viewed by the two people involved in the communicating -- is permissible. (Same goes for Facebook. A coach can use the messaging function, which is similar to an e-mail, but he can't write on Facebook walls.) This falls in accordance with the current electronic transmission guidelines that are already in place.

Not much more to say about this. If a coach is going to cheat on the recruiting trail, they are going to cheat. Personally, I think that with the pending UConn and USC investigations, the NCAA has much bigger fish to fry than coaches messing around with Twitter. Eamonn Brennan over at The Dagger says it best:

Sometimes, nothing beats a Beatles record on vinyl or a fresh newspaper spread out in the morning, the same way nothing quite beats a fat stack of benjamins in a crumpled white envelope. It just feels right.

Well played, sir.