Florida Rules for NCAA High School & Illegal Gifts

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has a blanket set of rules which apply to all schools who participate in college sports in the United States. These rules apply to the state of Florida as well, keeping colleges in that state from recruiting high school student-athletes illegally by offering them money or gifts, or promising to give them things if the student-athlete attends their college to play sports. These rules protect both the student athlete and college sports itself.

  1. Gifts and Cash

    • The NCAA monitors benefits which are given out to the student athletes and if it finds out a student-athlete has been given money or gifts by someone associated with a university within the state of Florida, serious fines and playoff restrictions will be imposed on that school by the NCAA. By restricting playoff games for a particular university, the program falls apart as the players don't feel like they are playing for anything significant and millions of dollars are lost in revenue. The student-athlete may also be punished by having awards stripped from him or he may not be allowed to play in NCAA sporting events for a set amount of time.

    Extra Benefit

    • Extra benefits are also monitored closely by the NCAA when it comes to Florida universities trying to recruit a player out of high school but do so in an indirect way. These extra benefits entail giving gifts, cash or jobs to a relative of the student-athlete who can then funnel money or gifts to them by indirect means. Jobs can be given to a relative of the student-athlete if it is warranted, like if her relative happens to be a university professor and the university hires the relative as a professor to teach classes. The NCAA monitors this to keep student-athletes from being paid by other means.

    Recruiting Contact

    • The NCAA has also gone as far as to only allow specific parties to contact and try to recruit prospective student-athletes for universities or colleges in Florida. Only coaches or those employed by the university or college can recruit student-athletes or make recruiting visits to their school. Anyone else, like booster club members or those not employed by the university, are prohibited from approaching these student-athletes about attending that Florida school. Fines or probation could be imposed on the school if this happens regularly, so Florida schools monitor all the groups associated with them to make sure they follow the rules as well.