Some feel ruling will give advantage to big programs

	Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt is in favor of restricting text-messages to recruits. Rex Brown/WireImage.com

By Justin Young, Special to SI.com, Rivals.com

The days of text-messaging recruits may be coming to an end by the end of the summer if a measure proposed by the Ivy League is passed next week.

The NCAA's Division I Management Council voted on Tuesday to eliminate the use of text messaging in college recruiting.

The opinions from those that use text-messaging at the college level are mixed.

Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt is a proponent of the text message ban. He is one of the few.

Kansas State associate head coach Dalonte Hill said he uses text-messaging daily, and is not in favor of its removal as an outlet to communicate with recruits. A number of other coaches are split down the middle on the issue.

However, many admit the messaging has become rampant in today's age of recruiting.

"This thing has become too intrusive into kid's lives," Hewitt said. "Not only coaches, but media people who get an idea of what they are thinking about. I was a proponent of doing it just on the weekends and not during the week.

"They originally said you could not do it during school hours, which I thought made an awful lot of sense. Kids shouldn't have text messages and two-way pagers going off in class or texting back and forth."

Hill is considered one of the nation's top recruiters. His work helped K-State sign Michael Beasley, the No. 1 player in the country. The relationship is so tight that Beasley decided to honor his National Letter of Intent with Kansas State after head coach Bob Huggins left for West Virginia.

Hill said he relies on text-messaging every day as part of his recruiting routine.

"It's a great way to reach out and keep up with the younger kids," Hill said. "It's a great way to let them know how things are going and build the relationship as well.

"It's a lot easier for a kid to tell you that he is interested with a text than it is over the phone, too. If he's not interested, he'll just text you and tell you that he's not interested instead of you calling him and wearing him out for a response. That interrupts his day moreso than getting the text."

Hill said banning today's new wave of communication will hurt the recruiting process.

"Banning it hurts the guys that work," Hill said. "Text-messaging is work. You are keeping up conversations right away and not having to wait until you get that one phone call. If you get rid of text messaging, you are giving an advantage to those upper-level universities."

Hewitt agrees that the lack of communication could result in losing the parity in today's game.

"It would kind of push it back towards the teams that are on television the most. Those teams might benefit from it," Hewitt said.

"If you look at the whole timeline of recruiting, they used to say it's about out-working people. They would call kids every day, then write letters to kids every day. Then about 1990, they said you could only call once a week and limited how many days you could go see kids and that kind of took away some of the parity.

"Now, with this whole text-messaging thing, kids are now having communication and open dialogue with more programs. Obviously the programs at the bottom trying to make their way up are probably text-messaging more than the guys that are at the top. In a funny way, I think the parity we see in college basketball is about the levels of communication we have with kids."