In the year following an article in The State Press on the failure of the ASU athletic department to police the potentially dangerous activities of the football program's student recruiters, a number of changes have been made.
While ASU prepares to host approximately 20 high school recruits before semester's end, the Sun Devil Recruiters now are being held more accountable during a recruit's visit by being required to sign a behavioral contract agreement, according to an ASU official.
Additionally, the number of recruiters has been reduced from 45 to 20, and the group has appointed an internal manager, said Mark Brand, the assistant athletic director of media relations.
"There is also a greater emphasis on training and expanding the recruiters' knowledge base of ASU," Brand said. "Recruiters' involvement in high school players' official weekend visits to campus are managed by an efficient and tightly run itinerary."
The changes came following an article in The State Press last year in which two Sun Devil recruiters said they were uninformed as to any NCAA guidelines regarding football recruiting hosts and hostesses.
They also described incidents of underage drinking and consensual sex between high school football recruits and recruiters at on- and off-campus parties during official and unofficial visits to ASU.
Similar programs exist on campuses nationwide. All schools within the Pac-10 athletic conference, including ASU and UA, employ student-recruiting groups.
Participants in UA's football hostess program, the Arizona Angels, guide football prospects on campus tours and serve as a resource for recruits' questions, said Tom Duddleston, UA's director of media relations.
"Guidelines are pretty standard for the hostesses," Duddleston said. "They aren't supposed to interact socially with recruits, nor are they authorized to meet with prospects off campus as a representative of the program."
David Hansburg, director of football relations at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said the university's football ambassadors are guided by a strict set of regulations.
"Ambassadors are in no way permitted to socialize with recruits either on or off campus," Hansburg said. "Their primary purpose is to serve as administrative assistants to the football staff."
Hansburg added that ambassadors distribute tickets to recruits and guide campus tours during official visits.
"If an ambassador is out at a bar, or a party, or a restaurant and sees a recruit, the ambassador is required to leave the location," Hansburg said. "If they don't, it's grounds for immediate termination."
ASU athletic director Gene Smith, current Sun Devil recruiters and their managers declined to comment for this story.
Reporter Christopher Drexel contributed to this article. Reach the reporter at kelly.vaughn@asu.edu.
