Last week, several thousand of the nation's best high school football players took part in what is steadily becoming a holiday for college football fans -- National Signing Day.
These athletes signed an official National Letter of Intent, promising that they would attend the university of their choosing. In exchange, schools guarantee admission to these recruited athletes, as well as any scholarships or financial aid packages that were promised.
Over 500 colleges from 55 conferences participate in the National Letter of Intent program, but not Penn -- or the rest of the Ivy League, for that matter.
Why? Well, quite simply, Ancient Eight schools aren't required to.
The National Letter of Intent was created in 1964 as a way of protecting both student athletes and universities.
Athletes wanted a way to ensure that they were getting all the things that glib recruiters were promising -- particularly admission to the school and scholarships. Colleges, on the other hand, wanted a guarantee that a recruit was actually coming to their school the next year. This way, a coach could rest assured that he had filled a hole in his program and move on to recruit another athlete.
Both of these goals were achieved through the Letter of Intent, which entered the athlete and the university into a binding agreement for at least one school year.
But since the Ivy League doesn't give out athletic scholarships, it is not required to participate in the program.
Rather, the league relies on what are called "likely letters." Here, a recruit receives a letter from the admissions department at the Ivy League school informing him that he is likely to be accepted to the school. It also includes a financial aid estimate.
But the league's reliance on likely letters and informal letters of intent allows for too many problems. Thus, the league should look into creating its own letters of intent.
The biggest problem with the current Ivy recruiting system is its lack of transparency.
Neither the coach nor the athlete is guaranteed anything, allowing both sides to play games with one another.
An athlete can request a likely letter from any number of Ivy League schools, and he doesn't have to tell a coach who else has given him a letter. The best assurance an Ivy coach can get that he has landed a recruit is a verbal commitment -- a non-binding promise. The real guarantee comes in the mail months later with the athlete's first tuition check.
Thus, coaches often rely on recruits coming into their program, only to lose them to another Ivy school or even a scholarship program.
At the same time, Ivy coaches can press recruits to apply early decision to their programs -- giving them the choice between that or nothing -- in order to guarantee that the athlete will come to their school. With athletes not allowed to make official school visits until their senior year, this is often too early for many recruits to decide on a university.
By having an Ivy letter of intent, both sides could be much more certain of the situation. The athlete would be held to his promise to attend a school. At the same time, coaches wouldn't have to pressure athletes to apply early because the letter of intent would have the same binding effect.
Additionally, the current system's timeline should be amended.
Right now, the earliest that an Ivy League school can send out a likely letter is Oct. 1. But athletes are recruited by schools well before the start of their senior year.
If an athlete is being recruited by an Ivy program, he has no idea of whether he will be admitted or what type of financial aid he will receive until the letter arrives. But coaches of scholarship programs, who have a set number of scholarships and spots to fill, are able to make much more tangible promises at an earlier time, even if they are not binding.
Thus, the Ivy letter of intent should go out as early as possible. Jeff Orleans, the Ivy League's executive director, said that July 1 would be the first feasible date if the league's presidents were to approve such a system.
Some will argue that a letter of intent is giving special treatment to athletes. I would contend that the recruits already get such treatment. Neither I nor most of my classmates were told that we were likely to be accepted before we even applied.
All a letter of intent would do is bring transparency and fairness to the current system. David Burrick is a senior urban studies major from Short Hills, N.J., and former Senior Sports Editor and Executive Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is dburrick@sas.upenn.edu
