It's Official: The NCAA Says Its Athletes Can't Be Coached By Their Actual Coach In The Olympics

Does anyone know exactly what the rule is governing this decision? Presumably it has something to do with when coaches may have contact with their athletes. Second, since not even the august NCAA can dictate whether someone employed as a coach may take a trip to London, what exactly constitutes coaching? Suppose Mark Wetmore wishes good luck to Coburn and Kipp: is that coaching? Would he be allowed to give them strategical advice while in London, but via Skype or phone?

BOOM!

What needs to happen is to get NBC on this, because NBC will be able to get a real response from the NCAA. The question that NBC needs to be asking is:

Why is the NCAA hurting US medal chances by banning college coaches from helping college athletes in London?

This ruling is consistent with the NCAA's unspoken policy to punish innocent athletes and coaches while doing nothing to people who actually did something wrong. See: current Penn State coaching staff and players.

How big a deal is this? If college athletes are coached by the US team coaches does that really hurt them?

My other question would be how this compares between different sports. I can see it being a bigger deal in T&F than swimming or gymnastics, but I don't really know much about how coaching works with other sports.

Somehow this reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer wants to play himself in Jerry's pilot.

"I want to play Kramer"

"you can't play Kramer"

"But I am Kramer"

"But you can't act"

(Kramer's head is blown away)

Questioning, you may not understand how coaching works, period. We are talking about the Olympic Games, where athletes are expected to produce peak performances. Do you think coaches send individual athletes to London without training plans?

To help clarify, the role of the coaches in T&F is to hold a stopwatch if/when necessary and facilitate athletes' workouts if their personal coaches are not on site. There is no true coaching done.

The NCAA policy is laughable and hypocritical, but proves again that athletes lose in our country when NHSF, NCAA, USATF, etc. all operate with different standards and rules.

That's stupid rule never stopped Matt Centrowitz Sr from coaching Matt Jr, nor Shalane Flanagan's mommy from coaching her.

This an absolute nonsense & a complete lack of common sense. Apart from that it's really a big deal cos it's not enforceable.

Are they gonna monitor phonecalls and emails? Are they gonna have private investigators follow the coaches around London to make sure they're not meeting athletes? Nope.

From Dave Svoboda and Sam Seemes of the USTFCCCA about an hour ago.

After consultation with the NCAA national office last week, the USTFCCCA national office was notified this afternoon that the NCAA will not issue any penalties against coaches or institutions who provided coaching to student-athletes with remaining eligibility at the 2012 IAAF World Junior Championships; nor will the NCAA issue any penalties to a coach or institution who provides coaching to a student-athlete with remaining eligibility at the 2012 Olympic Games.

The NCAA national office and USTFCCCA will be working in conjunction with the NCAA Presidential Rules Working Group to revise current rules (as they relate to providing coaching outside of a sports’ established playing and practice seasons) that bar coaches from coaching student-athletes with remaining eligibility at such events as the Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Junior Championships.

What's the penalty if caught? I know there are NCAA coaches in Europe right now coaching there kids.

Read the thread..answer was given

Name:::;:;: wrote:

From Dave Svoboda and Sam Seemes of the USTFCCCA about an hour ago.

After consultation with the NCAA national office last week, the USTFCCCA national office was notified this afternoon that the NCAA will not issue any penalties against coaches or institutions who provided coaching to student-athletes with remaining eligibility at the 2012 IAAF World Junior Championships; nor will the NCAA issue any penalties to a coach or institution who provides coaching to a student-athlete with remaining eligibility at the 2012 Olympic Games.

The NCAA national office and USTFCCCA will be working in conjunction with the NCAA Presidential Rules Working Group to revise current rules (as they relate to providing coaching outside of a sports’ established playing and practice seasons) that bar coaches from coaching student-athletes with remaining eligibility at such events as the Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Junior Championships.

So this is a non-issue.

This must be playing havoc with travel plans. Conflicting interpretations saying you can't do it and now an email posted anonymously saying the NCAA won't penalize you for doing it, although the NCAA apparently still thinks it's against the rules.

Who's on first? wrote:

This must be playing havoc with travel plans. Conflicting interpretations saying you can't do it and now an email posted anonymously saying the NCAA won't penalize you for doing it, although the NCAA apparently still thinks it's against the rules.

It seems to me that the situation is this. It is against the rules. If you ask an NCAA official if it's against the rules, they would tell you yes. However, it's such a certainty that it will be changed very soon that it's useless to punish people for breaking the rule. By the time they actually administer the sanctions, it won't be a rule anymore. So the NCAA people who are saying that it's still against the rules to do this are telling the truth but are also giving you a little wink and a nudge.