University of Tennessee’s Recruitment Practices Under Investigation

The University of Tennessee is being investigated by the N.C.A.A. for its football recruitment practices.

Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton released a statement confirming a report in The New York Times that the N.C.A.A. was engaged in a wide-ranging investigation into how Tennessee recruits its players and into the 75-member campus recruiting group, Orange Pride.

The investigation is centered around whether or not the recruitment hostesses for The University of Tennessee have gone too far in their attempts to recruit prospective football players to the school. The hostesses are pretty, college girls who try to entice the prospective recruits  by encouraging them to pick The University of Tennessee over any other schools.

Orange Pride became involved after a Tennessee recruit said that multiple recruiting hostesses drove nearly 200 miles to a high school game. Marcus Lattimore, of James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, S.C., said that the women held signs encouraging him and two of his teammates, who orally committed to the university, to attend Tennessee.

Lattimore is quoted as saying,“I haven’t seen no other schools do that,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

In fact, some of the hostesses have even gone as far as to use their persuasion on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. So, has the University of Tennessee gone too far in its efforts to recruit some of the nation’s top athletes? Only time will tell and the outcome of the N.C.A.A.’s investigation. In the meantime, what do you all think? Do you think that some schools go too far in their recruitment efforts?

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