Sept. 22, 2005
SAN DIEGO - Submit Questions Here For SDSU A.D. Jeff Schemmel
As we begin this "Ask the AD" segment of our website, I thought a good first topic might be the schedule card promotion that has been discussed at length over the past couple of weeks.
I have been asked by many of you about the story written by The San Diego Union-Tribune regarding those football schedule cards. If you haven't already seen them, they are cards with pictures of our student-athletes on one side (with a Denny's Restaurant logo), and a schedule with other Denny's information on the back.
I'm not sure one could decipher the applicable rule from the newspaper stories, so I will take a stab at it here.
NCAA rules allow pictures of student-athletes to appear with a sponsor logo on a wallet sized card, so long as that logo is all that appears on that side of the card.
The issue raised by the newspaper was whether the provisions of a different NCAA rule apply; one prohibiting the use of a student-athlete's picture when a commercial establishment (in this case Denny's) is a co-sponsor. That rule defines "co-sponsorship" quite narrowly.
The NCAA ruled that Denny's involvement did not constitute co-sponsorship as is intended by the rule, and we will continue to distribute the cards on campus, at Qualcomm Stadium, and at other commercial locations in the San Diego area.
As you can see, NCAA rules are complicated, and many times certain rules overlap other rules. That's when rulings and interpretations from the NCAA are necessary.
In fact this question was a legitimate one, one that our staff took special note of when putting the card program together. Our disappointment was the newspaper's ignoring of our offer to get a definitive answer from the NCAA before they ran a story alleging the violation. The perception to the readers, of course, was that we had committed a violation, when in fact we hadn't.
We will indeed make mistakes; everyone does. The rules are too complicated not to trip us up at times. We self-report inadvertent rules violations on a regular basis, as does any school with a good compliance program. We expect to be held accountable. We trust that same accountability applies to those who write about us.
Thanks for the question and your interest in Aztec Athletics. I look forward to answering more of your questions in the future!
Go Aztecs!