Tech, UGA say hostess scandal similar to Tennessee's not possible
Don't expect any football hostess scandals at UGA or Georgia Tech, both schools say.
The University of Georgia tells its hostesses straight up: no contact with the football recruits after they leave campus, compliance director Eric Baumgartner said.
At Georgia Tech, the hostess program, once called “Solid Gold Girls,” doesn’t even exist anymore, compliance director Paul Parker told the AJC in an e-mail.
Based on that, the state's two Division I football programs aren't worried about being caught in a situation similar to the University of Tennessee's.
Last week, the New York Times reported that the NCAA was looking into UT's recruiting practices for violations, particular among the athletic department's all-female student hostesses, who are used to recruit promising high school players.
Until five years ago, both Tech and Georgia had all-female recruiting groups similar to Tennessee's. However, a national recruiting scandal (sound familiar?) forced both to re-think their approach.
In 2004, an investigation at the University of Colorado revealed that the school's football team used strippers to entertain high school players during campus visits. In response, the NCAA decreed that all student hosts must be athletes or campus tour guides.
Georgia and Tech both went a step further. UGA’s all-female host group, “Georgia Girls,” was disbanded and replaced by “Georgia Game Day Hosts,” which has both male and female students, to meet and greet football prospects at home games.
Tech now lets the school admissions office provide campus guides as it does for all prospective students.
“Currently, Georgia Tech does not have any host/hostess program for hosting prospective student-athletes on campus,” Parker said.
Those involved with UGA's current recruiting group say this latest tempest doesn't put them in a bad light.
“Since all of this has come out, I don’t think it has affected us,” said Kristi Mejias, a recruiting graduate assistant who was a freshman the year UGA scrapped the “Georgia Girls” program.
“I’m not sure how the NCAA is going to rule [in the Tennessee case]. I feel they [the host programs] are a very effective force," said Mejias, who now works for the university as the liaison from the athletic association to the “Georgia Game Day Hosts” program.
“We follow the rules to a T.”
The students who participate are already part of other campus tour groups, she said. They go through an application process and usually share an interest in sports, she said.
“It is what it is. They work on game day, and they are hosts,” she said.
Baumgartner said UGA meets with those students and reviews the “dos and don’ts” about contacting prospective players each year.
“The recruiting office does a good job about reinforcing that message,” he told the AJC.
Baumgartner wouldn't comment on UT’s case, but he said when a UGA prospect is on campus on game day, the hostess “can walk with them, talk with them about Georgia, give them an overview of the university, as well as sit with them at the game.”
After that, “you are not to interact with them, that’s what our coaches are hired to do. That’s a part of their job description, it’s not yours,” Baumgartner said.
The issue at UT hasn’t sparked additional meetings with UGA hosts and hostesses about sticking to the rules, but Baumgartner said he’s sure it will come up again when there’s another recruiting weekend.
“When we officially meet, we will use it as an example of why we stress not going beyond the on-campus bounds of their responsibilities,” he said.
