Jim Harbaugh’s summer camp tour is legal again.
The NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors has voted to overturn the ruling from earlier this month that college football coaches can only hold clinics on their own campuses. The Division I Council passed the ban April 8, but it could not go into effect until the Board of Directors voted to approve it. Amid heavy controversy, the board instead struck down the original decision.
“The Board of Directors is interested in a holistic review of the football recruiting environment, and camps are a piece of that puzzle,” said Board of Directors chair Harris Pastides in an article on NCAA.org. “We share the Council’s interest in improving the camp environment, and we support the Council’s efforts to create a model that emphasizes the scholastic environment as an appropriate place for recruiting future student-athletes.”
The Division I Council’s rule required schools to “to conduct camps and clinics at their school’s facilities or at facilities regularly used for practice or competition. Additionally, FBS coaches and noncoaching staff members with responsibilities specific to football may be employed only at their school’s camps or clinics.”
But several players, coaches and administrators came out against that ruling, causing a re-evaluation over the past three weeks. Even the U.S. Department of Justice began investigating the ban, according to multiple news reports Monday.
Harbaugh, who went on a satellite camp tour around the country last summer and was planning another similar trip this summer, was one of the most prominent coaches to speak out against the ban. He will now be allowed to schedule those summer camps again.