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NCAA Extends Recruiting Dead Period

The NCAA Division I Council Coordination Committee on Wednesday extended the recruiting dead period in all sports through July 31.

That means no on-campus and off-campus in-person contact with recruits, but coaches can still have phone calls and electronic communication with recruits. The dead period was instituted on March 13 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NCAA recently allowed college athletes to begin voluntary workouts on June 1. Iowa will begin voluntary workouts for football players on June 8, with workouts for men's basketball and women's basketball beginning on June 15.

“The extension maintains consistent recruiting rules for all sports and allows coaches to focus on the student-athletes who may be returning to campus,” council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Pennsylvania, said in a statement released by the NCAA. “The committee is committed to reviewing the dead period again in late June or early July.”

The NCAA said the committee will regularly evaluate the dead period with guidance from medical experts.

The committee also decided to allow strength and conditioning coaches to virtually observe voluntary physical workouts for health and safety purposes, but only if requested by a student-athlete. The measure goes into effect June 1.

The strength and conditioning coach will be allowed to observe the workouts and discuss items related to voluntary workouts, but not direct or conduct the workout.

The decision was supported by the Committee on Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports Prevention and Performance Subcommittee. The NCAA statement said subcommittee encouraged schools that decide to allow their strength and conditioning coaches to observe voluntary workouts to "proactively consider the school’s overarching responsibility to protect the health of and provide a safe environment for each student-athlete."

The subcommittee stressed that schools should plan for how the strength and conditioning coach should respond if they observe an unsafe workout environment or in the event that a medical emergency occurs during a voluntary session.