North Carolina State University Athletics
COUNTDOWN TO KICKOFF: Compliance
8/29/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 29, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- If Jon Fagg had anything to say about it, he wouldn't have a job. There simply wouldn't be a need for NCAA colleges and universities to have compliance departments.
"I say all the time that compliance shouldn't even exist," said Fagg, NC State's assistant athletics director for compliance. "When you think about it, we are all in sports. The nature of sports is that you follow the rules. Compliance exists for the mere fact that people try to take advantage of the rules.
"Then everybody else tries to take advantage of them. Then you have to have a support group to make sure that everyone else does things the same way you do. That is why compliance exists."
The beginning of the fall semester is the worst time of the year for the four full-time employees and one student assistant in the compliance office. Not only are they double-checking the eligibility of every new football player on campus in advance of Sunday nigh's season-opener against Virginia Tech, they are also certifying and recertifying the eligibility of dozens of other new athletes whose seasons will also begin over the next couple of weeks: men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country and volleyball.
At the same time, the compliance office meets with each of the more than 600 varsity athletes as they return for the start of the new school year.
"August is the absolute worst month in compliance, no holds barred," Fagg said. "Everybody is coming in, and those kids who have to be double- and triple-checked are being finished. And then there is just the normal start-of-school activity that builds upon a college campus. People start having more meetings and they expect you to be as excited as they are about it. We are already drained and mad and short with everybody."
Now in his fourth year at NC State, Fagg has been tweaking a double-redundancy system that he and his staff built from the ground up to make sure that every athlete who competes for the Wolfpack is eligible under NCAA guidelines and that the department is compliant with all the rules contained in the 464-page NCAA Compliance Manual.
He and his full-time staff -- which consists of Director of Compliance Michelle Lee, administrative assistant Peggy Ballard and coordinator Rod Johnson (a former Wolfpack football player) - begin dissecting the paperwork on incoming freshmen as soon as they sign national letters of intent with the school. For most athletes, that means November of their high school senior year.
After they sign with the school, they officially apply for admission, register for the NCAA Clearinghouse (either on-line or by mail) and make sure both the school and the Clearinghouse get official high school transcripts. Athletes who transfer into the school must have additional paperwork, including an official release from their former school.
"Once we gather everything, then incoming people will be certified for eligibility twice," said Fagg, a former assistant football coach at Division II Mars Hill who has been working in compliance now for more than a decade. "We make sure we work really, really, really hard to make sure we don't have any cracks in our system. We will review their final information two times. They will be certified for eligibility once before they report to practice or when school starts, whichever comes first, and then once before they compete in a game."
"We do it that way as an insurance policy. We go back and review everything on the off-chance we have made a mistake. That hasn't happened since we put this system in place in 2002."
After it goes through the hands of Fagg and his staff, the paperwork begins a circuitous trip around campus, through admissions, the university registrar, the financial aid department and academic support. By the time faculty representative Donn Ward, the certifying officer for eligibility, signs the paperwork for each athlete, it has been checked by at least 15 people on campus, not including the eight to 12 faculty members who do eligibility reviews during the summer.
"I think people would be surprised at the number of people involved in this whole process," said Fagg, a graduate of the University of Arizona. "Those are all people who are directly involved in maintaining eligibility."
Of course, it's not just initial eligibility that takes up the time of the compliance staff.
Some of the stuff that comes across Fagg's desk is amazing: Are directors of basketball operations allowed to throw passes in practice? Can some members of the baseball staff wear a uniform and sit on the bench during games, or do they have to sit in the stands in street clothes. If pre-game walk-throughs are not included in the 20-hour practice week, then why are walk-throughs not allowed on days off?
"I mean, who cares?" Fagg said. "God Bless America."
But the reason compliance offices exist is to make sure the diverse schools that make up the NCAA are playing under the same rules with the same interpretations. Easier said than done in an ultra-competitive world where everyone is looking for some kind of minute advantage. The compliance office's job is to make sure that everyone associated with the school - from athletics department employees, to coaches, to players, to boosters - knows what is allowed under NCAA guidelines.
Fagg gets an e-mailed list of "Hot Topics" every week of pressing issues that need interpretation, some of which are addressed in the compliance manual and some of which are not. That's why he constantly on the phone with Lee, whose office is adjacent to his in the Weisiger-Brown Building. On average, they talk about every 15 minutes.
When they aren't talking with each other, they are talking with the people in charge of compliance with the ACC. As issues arise, ACC Assistance Commissioner Shane Lyons and his staff make sure all ACC schools follow various interpretations the same way.
But it's all an effort to make sure there are no compliance issues that could be potentially embarrassing to the school or devastating to a young student-athlete.
"I say this to our staff all the time: 99.99 percent success is complete and total failure," Fagg said. "That .01 percent is a person. We try real hard to remember that. We have young kids in our care. If we make a mistake, they are the ones that pay. If we certify someone wrong, they are the ones that are going to have to sit out later. They are the ones who will pay back their scholarship money.
"It's a lot of hard work, but it is fun."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
