Ore. St. responds to Hawaii claim
CORVALLIS, Ore. — The Oregon State Beavers released a statement before the weekend, addressing a tweet from Hawaii football coach Nick Rolovich showing that Oregon State had sent recruiting mail to at least one of his players.
“Oregon State Athletics and head coach Jonathan Smith became aware of unintentional mailings directed at a University of Hawai’i student-athlete this morning,” the statement said.
“We are committed to following NCAA rules and are looking into this matter fully.”
It is considered an NCAA violation to contact or recruit a player at another university, and it is unknown at this time the extent of Oregon State’s contact with the player/players who received the mail.
However, Oregon State athletics has categorized the contact as “unintentional.”
“The NCAA prohibits contact between coaches and student-athletes on other teams to prevent continuous recruiting of student-athletes,” NCAA.org reads.
“The NCAA and its members believe this runs contrary to our mission, which is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount.”
Rolovich tagged Oregon State compliance, Pac-12 compliance, the NCAA and others, including LaVar Ball, in his tweet, but it not yet clear whether he officially reported the possible infraction to the NCAA and it remains a possibility that the Beavers self-report the incident.
The tweet read, “My apologies for our players not being able to attend your Spring game. Ours was the same day, bad timing. Quick question, in the 203 years of coaching, none of you realized you couldn’t actively recruit another school’s players? Sent to campus?”
Oregon State’s coaching staff consists of three coaches who were at Hawaii within the past two years — special-teams coordinator Jake Cookus, wide receiver coach Kefense Hynson and defensive line coach Legi Suiaunoa.