Recruiting, Program Management, and NCAA Rules Compliance
This domain tests the practical rules knowledge a head coach must hold and the management systems that keep a program compliant and healthy. Items are scenario-based: a phone call, a visit, a benefit, a calendar date.
Recruiting fundamentals
Know the difference between contact (in-person, off-campus conversation), evaluation (assessing ability), and recruiting materials. Recruiting calendars define quiet, dead, contact, and evaluation periods; permissible activity changes by period and by sport. Official visits are institution-funded and limited; unofficial visits are family-funded. Offers, inducements, and extra benefits are restricted, and boosters count as representatives of athletics interests.
Amateurism and eligibility
Protect eligibility: initial-eligibility standards, transfer rules, amateurism certification, and name-image-likeness rules that vary by state and institution. When uncertain, stop and ask the compliance office before acting.
Program management
Build systems: budget and travel, staff roles and delegation, countable-coach limits, Title IX and equity considerations, facility scheduling, and documentation of contacts and visits. Compliance is a distributed responsibility - the head coach sets the tone by reporting promptly and never asking staff to "handle it quietly."
Worked example
A prospect's parent asks whether the program can pay for a summer camp. Reasoning: camp fees are generally the family's responsibility, and paying them would be an impermissible benefit tied to recruitment. The correct response is to decline, refer the family to compliance, and log the conversation.
Traps
Relying on rumor ("everyone does it"); contacting prospects through personal social media; assuming the compliance office knows what you did; failing to document; treating rules as the compliance officer's job alone.