NC State’s Director of Compliance asked a student Thursday to shutter his ‘John Wall to State’ group on Facebook. Michelle Lee, the Interim AD for Compliance, feared that the appeal violated NCAA recruiting rule 13.02.13:
From the front page of today’s News & Observer:
Thursday morning, N.C. State asked Taylor Moseley, a freshman, to shut down “John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!”, a Facebook group that drew more than 700 members. By Thursday night, it was gone. Moseley started a new group — “Bring a National Title back to NC STATE!” — that makes no mention of Wall but includes a photograph of the senior at Raleigh Word of God, who is widely considered the nation’s best point guard prospect.
Moseley quickly co-operated, according to the paper.
A quick search by SFN found that there are other schools with such Facebook groups: Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Louisville, Baylor and two for Memphis. Furthermore, there are literally hundreds of entries on blogs, message boards and other forms of Internet communities that have some variant of “John Wall Please Come to XYZ!”
Apparently, NC State chose to take the high and the conservative road, which is probably a good thing considering the brouhaha surrounding Wall at the moment. You can bet that rules are being bent to their cracking point over this high level but commit-phobic young man, and NCSU wants to avoid any appearance at all of breaking the rules.
On the other hand, the young man has his First Amendment right to free speech and as a student apparently not associated with the athletic program, it’s difficult to make a strong case for him being a representative of the school’s academic interests. If that were the case, every fan who cheered Wall in the various college arenas he’s visited on his national tour over the last year would be guilty of violating the NCAA rule. That’s ludicrous on the surface and the cease-and-desist order from State to Moseley probably is as well.
If you would like to look at a good overview of NCAA Recruiting Rules, go here.
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