Being recruited?
Know your rights.

Recruiting Rules

When can a coach contact me?

• D1 & D2: Coaches generally can't call, text, DM, or approach you in person until June 15 after your sophomore year. Exact windows vary by sport.
• D3: Contact is allowed year-round. No dead period.
• Dead periods: During this time, no in-person recruiting contact is allowed at all, even on campus. During this time, even a text or a wave in the hallway from a coach isn't allowed.

Can I contact a coach first?

• Yes! The restrictions above are on coach-initiated contact. You can email a coach, fill out a recruiting questionnaire, attend a camp, or reach out any time, at any age.
• Coaches are also limited in how they can respond before your contact period opens. Don't be surprised by a generic or delayed reply early on. That's the rule working correctly, not necessarily a lack of interest.

What should I know about official visits?

An official visit is a paid campus visit hosted by the school. What that means in practice is:

• Generally one official visit per school (unless there's a coaching change), though you can take as many unofficial visits as you want.
• On an official visit, the school can pay for your transportation, up to a two-night stay, meals, and reasonable entertainment for you and up to two family members.
• On an unofficial visit, you cover your own costs. A school can't quietly cover extra expenses.

NIL Compensation

What's NIL?

Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) is your right to get paid by a third party (such as a brand, a local business, or a collective) for endorsements, appearances, and your personal brand. It's separate from any scholarship.

What are the pay-for-play rules?

• Schools and collectives can't pay you simply to enroll or stay.
• Every NIL deal must reflect a genuine business purpose and fair market value. Exactly what the CSC and are built to check (see below). A deal with no real deliverable attached is the classic sign of disguised pay-for-play.

• NIL is money from outside parties, paid for real promotional value, which means fair market value for an actual service, not just because you're talented.
• Revenue sharing is money the school itself pays you directly, capped at $20.5 million per school currently, authorized under the 2025 House v. NCAA settlement, and reported through CAPS (College Athlete Payment System).
• NIL and revenue-sharing money are tracked, reported, and reviewed separately. A coach mixing the two into one vague "package" number is worth pushing back on. Ask which part is which.

What's an extra benefit vs. an NIL deal?

• A legitimate NIL deal pays you for real value, such as an endorsement, an appearance, or your name on a product, at fair market value.
• An extra benefit is anything of value given to you or your family because of your athletic status, with no real service behind it. Think: cash, cars, free stuff, favors. This "benefit" is a violation, both for you and for the school.

What are the CSC and NIL Go?

• The College Sports Commission (CSC) is the body created after the House v. NCAA settlement to enforce NIL and revenue-sharing rules.
• NIL Go is the CSC's clearinghouse. Any deal worth $2,500 or more must be submitted for review against fair-market-value benchmarks.
• As a high schooler, you'll need to disclose any NIL deal over $2,500 starting on your first day of junior year. You get a two-week window after enrollment to report it.

When can I enter into an NIL contract?

As a high schooler, you have to consult your state's laws and your state high school athletic association's rules:

• Some states allow NIL deals well before college; others don't.
• A deal that's fine for NCAA purposes can still cost you your high school eligibility if your state association doesn't allow it.

Agents / Representation

• You generally cannot have an agent market you to colleges or negotiate your enrollment. This process can jeopardize NCAA eligibility.
• You generally can, in many states, hire an agent or attorney specifically to review NIL deals, which is a narrower, different role than marketing you to colleges.

Eligibility & Transfer

What is the new "5-in-5" eligibility model?

Approved by the NCAA in June 2026, it replaces the old "4 seasons in 5 years" rule with an age-based model: 5 seasons of competition within a 5-year window. This starts either at full-time college enrollment or the academic year after your 19th birthday, whichever comes first. Extension waivers are being eliminated except for pregnancy, official religious missions, and active-duty military service.

• The 5-in-5 model isn't retroactive for athletes who have already used up eligibility.
• It fully applies to athletes enrolling in 2027–28; current athletes and 2026 incoming freshmen can choose between the old and new model.

When can I enter the transfer portal, and when can coaches contact me?

• The transfer portal isn't a high-school mechanism, but it shapes how many real roster spots exist by enrollment. Coaches fill one capped roster from both the high school class and the portal class.
• Football: a single 15-day window, Jan 2–16 (with a short extension for College Football Playoff teams).
• Basketball: a 15-day window opening at midnight after the NCAA Tournament National Championship game.
• If a school's head coach leaves, its current players get their own window to enter the portal. The new window typically opens a few days after a new coach is hired.
• Other schools generally can't contact a player before that player has actually entered the portal. Early contact is tampering, which falls under the same idea as the recruiting contact-period rules above.

What happens if the coach who recruited me leaves or gets fired?

Your National Letter of Intent is with the institution, not the coach. Losing your coach doesn't automatically release you from a signed agreement, though you can ask the school directly for a release, and most programs grant them.

What could ruin my eligibility?

• Giving false information to the NCAA Eligibility Center
• Accepting extra benefits (see NIL Compensation above)
• Working with an agent outside the narrow allowed role
• Signing a professional contract or competing for prize money in your sport
• Falling short of academic eligibility requirements (core courses, GPA)
• Betting on sports

Roster & Scholarship

Can I be cut?

• Yes. With new NCAA roster caps in effect at many D1 programs, walk-ons and depth players are more exposed than in past years.
• An offer isn't the same as a guaranteed spot for four years.

What happens if I'm injured?

• NCAA rules prohibit a school from reducing or canceling your athletic aid because of an injury, illness, or how much you play.
• That protection is real, but it's worth confirming directly. It doesn't prevent non-renewal for other reasons at the end of a year-to-year scholarship.

Scholarship terms worth asking about

• Is this a multi-year scholarship, or does it renew year to year?
• What are the specific reasons it could be reduced or not renewed?
• Given roster caps, is my roster spot itself guaranteed?

Privacy

Your right to see academic records

Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), you and your family have rights over your own education records:

• The right to inspect and review them, and to request correction of anything inaccurate.
• Once you turn 18 or enroll in college, those rights transfer from your parents to you directly.

Your right to see medical records

Injury and medical records kept by a school's athletic department are generally treated as part of your educational records, meaning you have the right to access them too, just as the training staff or coaches do. Ask directly how to request a copy of your own file, especially before transferring or signing anything tied to injury history.

International Athletes

Rules if you're not a U.S. citizen or are currently living outside the United States. Different rules apply:

• Most international student-athletes compete on an F-1 visa, which tightly restricts outside income, including most NIL activity. The F-1 visa is a real gray zone right now: federal immigration rules haven't caught up with NCAA NIL rules.
• The risks associated with violating F-1 work restrictions affect far more than eligibility: they can mean visa termination or deportation, not just losing a season.
• You'll register with the NCAA Eligibility Center for academic and amateurism certification, same as any recruit, but should also talk to an immigration-savvy advisor before signing any NIL deal.
• Recent visa rule changes shortened grace periods and added restrictions on changing schools or programs. Ask specifically how this affects a future transfer, not just your initial enrollment.

Contracts

What is a contract?

This is the most misunderstood part of recruiting: a contract is a promise that's legally enforceable. Plenty of what you'll hear during recruiting isn't that. A contract has to be both written down and signed to be binding. A written offer you haven't signed yet isn't final.

Written vs. verbal commitments

• A verbal commitment is not a contract. It's a statement of intent from either side, and it can change.
• A written offer is the first step, but it's the signed agreement (the NLI or financial aid agreement) that actually holds up. If it isn't both written and signed, treat it as provisional.

When are the NLI and financial aid offer binding?

The National Letter of Intent (NLI) (a binding agreement between you and a school) and the school's financial aid agreement are the actual binding steps. Read every line before signing either, and make sure you understand what you're agreeing to. Once you've signed them, walking away has real consequences (for the Letter of Intent, you could be sitting out a year if you transfer).

What is actually being offered?

"Offer" gets used loosely. Know which offer you are actually being given:

• Full or partial athletic scholarship
• Preferred walk-on (no scholarship, but a reserved roster spot)
• NIL deal or revenue-share agreement (compensation, not admission or a roster guarantee by itself)
• At schools without athletic scholarships (such as those in the Ivy League): a coach's "support" is the equivalent of being placed on the list for admission, or a likely letter.
• Neither support nor a likely letter is a scholarship, and neither is a final admission decision.

Collective contract termination clauses

NIL collective deals often include conditions that end the contract early. Read for these two in particular:

• Roster status: Some deals terminate automatically if you're cut, quit, or lose your roster spot.
• Enrollment: Some deals are contingent on you actually enrolling and staying enrolled at that specific school, and transferring likely ends the deal, sometimes with money owed back.

What to be careful about when signing a contract

• Read the termination clauses first, not last.
• Check for exclusivity terms that limit your other deals or sponsors.
• Get a parent, guardian, or advisor to review it before you sign, not after.
• Never sign the same day you receive it. A legitimate offer will still be there if you take a night to read it.

Changing your mind

Terminology

Terms coaches and compliance staff use, and what they actually mean.

Rules & Laws

Recruiting is governed by three separate layers of rules that don't always agree with each other. Knowing which one is talking matters.

Red Flags

• !Artificial deadlines. "Answer today or the offer's gone." A real offer survives you taking time to think.
• !Guarantees that sound too certain. No one can promise you playing time, a permanent roster spot, or a specific outcome.
• !Unlicensed or "street agents." Anyone brokering access to your talent for a cut of future earnings, without being a licensed agent in your state. See Agents/Representation above.
• !"Don't tell your AD or compliance office." A legitimate deal or offer has nothing to hide from your school's compliance staff.
• !Pressure to sign without your family seeing it first. Any real offer can wait for a parent or advisor to review it.
• !Verbal-only promises about aid, playing time, or roster spot. If a coach won't put it in writing, assume it isn't guaranteed.
• !A "deal" with no real deliverable. Getting paid without doing anything in return is a classic sign of disguised pay-for-play.
• !Contact outside allowed recruiting periods. If you're not sure it's allowed, ask directly. See Recruiting Rules above.