The NCAA has cracked down. No, it’s not a more stringent
program on detecting performance enhancing drugs. No, it has
nothing to with the implementation of instant replay.
Instead, its football media guides which are under the
microscope. Well, actually the weight scale.
Seriously.
Beginning this fall, football media guides can not exceed 208
pages. In April, the NCAA committee and management council, which
consists of university presidents, faculty representatives,
conference commissioners, approved Proposal 2003-32 that reduces
the number of pages in media guides, allowing for an even playing
field when it comes to recruitment by universities.
Before, the portly media guide resembled most UCLA Life Science
textbooks. Missouri’s guide weighed in at the size of a
phonebook, stacking up at a whopping 614 pages.
“I don’t particularly like the change,” said
Marc Dellins, UCLA sports information director. “I feel like
each school should be able to represent its program as it wishes. I
can understand the rationale behind it because some programs are
putting together 500-600 page media guides and smaller schools
can’t compete.”
Once just used as an informational source for fans and media,
guides have now transformed into a means of showing potential
recruits all it has to offer. Texas University sends out 4,000 of
its 20,000 guides to the media. Nearly half of the estimated 7,500
of UCLA’s guides go out to the media.
So why the sudden decrease on the number of pages in guides?
With larger programs being able to toss extra dollars around to
make their guides more appealing to prospective recruits, lower-end
programs have trouble keeping weight.
“Basically it turned into a recruiting tool,” NCAA
spokesman Jennifer Kearns said. “That wasn’t the
intention.”
With the new rule, universities are saving money. Dellins says
UCLA is saving between $6,000-7000 with the slender media
guides.
Despite a little nip here and tuck there, athletic departments
are still finding ways to sneak to separate themselves from the
bunch.
“Our football coaching staff believes putting together a
first-class book helps sell the program,” said Chad Moller,
Missouri’s director of media relations for athletics.
“Now we will have to find other creative ways to make our
book stand out from the crowd.”
The back-to-back National Champions USC sports this year’s
media guide in a metallic-silver hardcover with Heisman quarterback
Matt Leinart and tailback Reggie Bush posing. Texas A&M also
has shed the paperback version and opted for hardcover.
Not to be outdone, on the cover of Oklahoma’s media guide
is a hologram image of coach Bob Stoops and defensive end Dan Cody
with the Big XII Championship trophy resting on a table at one
angle. At another angle, the Sooners are shown hoisting the trophy
in the air.
So what happens if programs like USC and Oklahoma find more ways
to make their guides standout, like using a hardcover and hologram
image while staying at the 208-page mark? Kearns says there is no
current legislation on the number of dollars allowed to be spent on
a media guide, which leaves an edge for bigger programs to still
bat their lashes at recruits.
“The legislation doesn’t address that,” Kearns
said. “I suppose if it becomes an issue then they will
address it.”
As for UCLA, it trimmed its paperback media guide from 368 pages
to 208.
For the pages that didn’t make the cut, programs instead
are creating supplemental packets that must be printed out, stapled
and only handed out to the media. Most universities are providing
the trimmed pages on the web in a PDF format.