Indiana University Athletics
Compliance Question Of The Week
Compliance Question Of The Week
Question:
Next fall, women's soccer has been invited to a tournament in Italy/Hawaii/California (take your pick). Due to budget constraints, the team will only be able to go if each student-athlete can raise $2000 to help off-set expenses. Annette Stopper, our all-american goal keeper who is on a full athletics scholarship, has come to Coach Kelley with the following concerns: Her mother (recently widowed) was just diagnosed with MS and is not able to work at this time. Annette needs to go home for the summer to take care of her little brothers and sisters while her mom adjusts to living with MS. The family has a long-term disability policy (which they bought shortly after the father's untimely death when they discovered they were severely underinsured), but it doesn't kick in for 6 months. She is not going to be able to work this summer and her family can obviously not contribute to the amount she needs to come up with for the trip. What can she do to raise money for the trip?
Answer:
The following rules need to be considered and followed in all cases:
Question:
Next fall, women's soccer has been invited to a tournament in Italy/Hawaii/California (take your pick). Due to budget constraints, the team will only be able to go if each student-athlete can raise $2000 to help off-set expenses. Annette Stopper, our all-american goal keeper who is on a full athletics scholarship, has come to Coach Kelley with the following concerns: Her mother (recently widowed) was just diagnosed with MS and is not able to work at this time. Annette needs to go home for the summer to take care of her little brothers and sisters while her mom adjusts to living with MS. The family has a long-term disability policy (which they bought shortly after the father's untimely death when they discovered they were severely underinsured), but it doesn't kick in for 6 months. She is not going to be able to work this summer and her family can obviously not contribute to the amount she needs to come up with for the trip. What can she do to raise money for the trip?
Answer:
The following rules need to be considered and followed in all cases:
- Student-athletes may fund-raise for a team/organization (including outside teams or summer events such as the Big Ten foreign tour) but cannot fund-raise for themselves (e.g., to defray individual expenses). All money raised must go to the team/organization and cannot be earmarked for use by a specific student-athlete. The money raised must be distributed by the team in a manner that doesn't reimburse a student-athlete for expenses based on how much money the student-athlete raised or their athletics ability. Fundraising to defray individual expenses would be the equivalent of a student-athlete using his/her athletics reputation for pay - which is against our amateurism rules. Distribution of funds based on athletics ability also would be contrary to our amateurism rules.
- Student-athletes may contact boosters in their fundraising efforts for an outside team/organization, but an institution cannot provide the student-athlete with a list of boosters.
- Institutions, including coaches, may not donate to an outside team that includes one of its student-athletes as a participant.
- Boosters may donate to an outside team/organization that includes a student-athlete from the institution of which they are a booster, but such donations cannot be earmarked for use by a specific student-athlete.