Description
For this task, you will perform fieldwork. Hopefully, as noted early on in the course, you have established an appointment to meet with an athletic administrator who deals with the compliance operations, preferably in person, or by phone or email if in-person is not possible.
This week, you will interview an athletic department’s compliance officer or any other position responsible for the compliance operations at an institution.
Your interview should address the following components:
- Six interview questions:
- Does your institution have a compliance website? If not, do you plan to have one in the future? If so, discuss what important pieces of information go into your compliance web site and why they are there. List their compliance website.
- Who certifies incoming student-athletes for your program?
- Discuss the compliance surrounding the recruiting process.
- What procedures are in place regarding transfer student-athletes?
- Who handles the following on your campus?
- Scholarships: typing and checking to the NCAA equivalency limit. Does your institution use the actual method, average method or a combination of both.
- Eligibility: Who works on final certification of student-athletes?
- Grade checks: Is there a team that looks at grades of student-athletes to determine eligibility issues?
- Describe the methods used to notify student-athletes of the NCAA rules, their rights as student-athletes and the policies and procedures on student-athletes.
(If a student-athlete policy and procedure manual is available, request if a copy for examination is permissible)
- Develop an additional set of five questions that will be used to interview the desired individual in your geographic area.
- Create a variety of alternative questions for your interviewee if your first set of questions is unable to be answered.
- Be sure your questions are open-ended; avoid questions that generate one-word answers.
- Provide support with clear justification and accurate rationale for the questions you developed as to why they are critical in the field of intercollegiate athletics.
- Determine which literature assigned throughout the course is relevant to this interview and explain why.
If the officer provides attachments or links to you regarding compliance material, please include it in your document or in the references section of your paper.
Be sure to clearly state all findings from the interview while providing your views of the athletic department’s policies and procedures relevant to compliance.
Length: 10–12 pages
Explanation & Answer
In progress
Attached.
Running head: INTERVIEW
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Interviewing a Compliance Officer
Student’s Name
Institution
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Introduction
Over the years, institutions have come to appreciate the importance of compliance within the
intercollegiate athletics administration, which has yielded long-term success and
accomplishments in the industry. It is mainly attributed to increased pressure in competitions,
analysis from the media, and suspicions from the public. Institutions are adopting ways that
minimize the allegations by ensuring that they have an administrator who is knowledgeable,
interested, takes part in federal and compliant with rules from National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA). For this course, we were required to carry out fieldwork where we
scheduled an appointment to interview with the athletic administrator who was in charge of
compliance operations. The selected individual for the course was the deputy athletic director at
Samford University; Michelle Durban and a one-on-one interview was carried out. As agreed by
Michelle Durban, compliance is the responsibility of everyone as it ensures that there is a
maximum functionality of the department, which includes the culture of the department.
The following is the interview that took place:
Interviewer: Does the institution have a website that is strictly dedicated to compliance? If not,
are there any plans to have one in future? If so, kindly tell us what information you think should
go to the website and the essence of such information related to compliance. If one does exist,
please provide a link.
Michelle:
Yes. Samford University has a site dedicated to compliance that is accessible to
all our students. The website has information about all the compliance staff members, and this is
important as it gives the students a clear understanding of the existing compliance with the rules
of NCAA. The existence of the website helps the student to understand that the compliant office
is active and its primary function is to recognize and reduce areas of risk in the program of
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athletic that could affect the university negatively. The information that goes on the website
mainly is the updates of the NCAA since it is essential for the student to understand if there are
new rules that may be collected for all the groups or specific to different groups, for instance, the
football team. The Compliance Office ensures that the updates are regularly made, and it is our
work to ensure that the students are informed if there existed a problem and how to be prevented
in the future through our website. The students can access the site from
https://samfordsports.com/news/2017/8/21/welcome-to-samford-university-compliance.aspx
Interviewer: What are the functions of the Athletic Compliance Office at Samford University?
Michelle:
The Compliance office at Samford is involved in education and monitoring. As
the compliance staff, we ensure that there is a regular close interaction between us, the coaches
as well as the student-athletes. By doing so, our main aim is to provide information and materials
that mainly focuses on the presentation of the complicated bylaws of NCAA. As we offer them
the data, we also ensure that the news reaches the Samford community at large through our
websites or from the coaches and the student-athletes. The compliance staff also help in
monitoring of the functions of the athletic department that are ruled by the legislation of NCAA.
It is also important to clarify what most individuals believe that since Samford University has a
compliance office, it is a guarantee that no problem will occur. Unfortunately, we cannot always
assure incidence free events. Numerous individuals are involved in the operations of the athletic
program at the university. These people are included in the decision-making process that may
affect the program positively or adversely thus tying down the hands of the compliance office as
it cannot stop the occurrence of violations within the program. All components of the program
should work effectively, efficiently and in unison to guarantee compliance. All those who are
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interested in the Samford University athletes should support the program by complying and
being acquainted with the rules of NCAA.
Interviewer: Who certifies incoming student-athletes for your program?
Michelle:
The Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE)
accredits the Samford University Athletic Training Education Program (ATEP). The program
has received recognition since it has met the national standards for the Entry-level athletic
training education. However, some requirements and procedures have to be met for a studentathlete to be admitted to the program. For instance, the student should be recognized as a
legitimate member of Samford University. The student-athlete should ensure that they make a
written request for an ATEP application that is directed to the University's Director of Athletic
Training Education. Additionally, the interested student should ensure that they complete a form
and are in possession of three recommendation letters, three references, and official transcripts
from the high schools or higher education institutions. All these should be submitted to the
university's director of athletic training education. Since the requirements are too many, those
interested in the program and would wish to join should visit the website under the link
https://catalog.samford.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=8&poid=2132
Interviewer: Discuss the compliance surrounding the recruiting process.
Michelle: The process begins with the responsibility of the coaches. The individual head coach
should ensure that the allowed number of coaches are involved in training off-campus at a go.
They should also make sure the training sessions take place at the appropriate times of the school
calendar, which are based on the NCAA's calendar. The responsibility of head coaches is to
make sure that there is a comprehensive system needed to record the training activities. Even if
the information is availed to the Compliance Office as monitoring process, the head coaches
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should ensure that there is a copy of the files with all the required information. The second part
of the recruiting process is the recruiting exam from NCAA. Coaches who have passed the
NCAA Recruiting certificate Exam are the only ones who are allowed to take part in the offcampus training activities for the University. The exam is accessible during the spring season for
the preceding academic year, and it is offered the whole year if new coaches are needed. These
coaches should be on the list of Declaration of Staff to be allowed as off-campus trainers. The
third part of the recruiting process is monitoring and reviewing the training activities. Aside from
monitoring from the Compliance Office, the Assistant Athletic Director also supervises the
training during the processing of the recruitment and a means of providing the official
documentation. The recruiting materials are given by Bylaw 13.4.1 in the form of article and
Bylaw 13.4.2 in the form of a video or audio. The NCAA reduced items that were initially
provided to the student-athletes. The materials are available on the Samford University website,
but they are not allowed to be printed or issued to the students. The recruiting coordination of the
university is active except that ...
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