National Signing Day: Should a Recruit Sign a Letter of Intent?

The first Wednesday of February is the first day of the annual signing period for NCAA Division I football players, during which prospective student athletes sign copies of the National Letter of Intent indicating their commitment to attend the school of their choice and fax the letter to the football coach of the chosen school.  

It's an annual rite in which we all get to witness hundreds of grown men crowded around fax machines in various states of panic for periods of several hours, awaiting faxes from all those kids who verbally committed to their program. Some schools, notably Alabama, have live webcams fixed on those same fax machines to satisfy maniacal fans who want to see the faxes spit out, even though they can't read the names.

But is the National Letter of Intent in the best interest of the student athlete?  Should he or she sign one?  For most, the answer may be yes, even though as with almost all matters concerning collegiate athletics, the NLI is a one-sided document totaling favoring the college or university. The NLI commits the student to attend the chosen university, while committing the university to nothing more than to give the student a one-year grant in aid in accordance with NCAA guidelines. 

The NLI does not guarantee the student playing time or even a spot on the team. As we shall see, the NLI does limit the student's freedom of movement even if his reason for attending the school in the first place has changed.  It is also not unusual for coaches to over-recruit and then pressure students to "grayshirt" or delay their admittance in order to defer counting their scholarship against the ensuing class scholarship limits.  

(An aside, this practice was roundly condemned yesterday in a sanctimonious op-ed piece on SI.com, by the President of the University of Florida, who apparently didn't know, or perhaps just chose to ignore, that it was a practice routinely engaged in by former coach Urban Meyer.)

So why is signing in the best interest of most athletes?  If you're not a superstar who would be guaranteed a spot on the team just by showing up, then signing an NLI, while it may not guarantee your spot on the team, will substantially increase the likelihood that it will not be given away before you get to campus.  

If you are a superstar, 5-star prospect, then you are probably just as well served by not signing an NLI and just telling the coach that you will be coming to his school.  That way, you won't be locked in should something happen before you get there, such as the coach leaving for another job or retiring.  If you have signed an NLI and that should happen, then your ability to move to a different school rests on a release by the school with which you signed or, absent such a release, an appeal granted by the Collegiate Commissioners Association which administers the NLI.