ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three aspects of coaching behavior during the recruitment process: conduct by coaches violating National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) rules and regulations, withdrawing scholarship offers that coaches make to student athletes, and coaches extending scholarship offers to student athletes that exceed what NCAA regulations permit them to honor. Major violations of NCAA recruiting rules, specifically those involving improper offers and inducements, typically result in colleges and universities self-imposing penalties and the NCAA imposing additional penalties. The chapter focuses on the salient features of the coach-athlete relationship that lend context to the legal and ethical issues that resound in the recruiting process. It describes legal norms and regulatory processes, both internal and external to intercollegiate athletics, which either regulate or potentially regulate coaches' recruitment behavior. Institutions should consider the nature of the coach-athlete relationship when impliedly validating conduct by coaches during the recruiting process that harms the interests of student athletes.
