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NCAA says app Snapchat can be used as a recruiting tool

Snapchat

If this sounds like a headline you’d read on The Onion, you’d probably be correct. However, this is actually true.

The NCAA specifically mentioned the popular social media app Snapchat as a permissible form of communication to use for recruiting purposes, effective on Aug. 1. Snapchat was released in the fall of 2011, and allows users to share photos, videos or drawings -- known as “Snaps” -- to friends for a determined length of time. Once that time expires, so does the “Snap”.

This was announced on Monday through the NCAA’s Educational Column:

In basketball and men’s ice hockey, any type of electronically transmitted correspondence (e.g., e-mail, facsimile, instant message, text message, Snapchat, etc.) may be sent to a prospective-student athlete, provided the correspondence is sent directly to the prospective student-athlete (or his or her parents or legal guardians) and is private between the sender and recipient. Once a prospective student-athlete signs a NLI or an institution’s written offer of admission and/or financial aid or after the institution receives a financial deposit from the prospective student-athlete in response to the institution’s offer of admission, the institution may communicate publicly with that prospective student-athlete.

Snapchat is the only device or app mentioned specifically in the column, though that was likely just to specify that it was an acceptable form of communication such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or text messaging.

It will be interesting to see how coaches, if any, utilize this somewhat controversial app.

Follow @terrence_payne