RECRUITING DESK
The four period designations and what each one governs
Every date in the recruiting year carries one of four labels, and each label restricts a different thing.
College recruiting does not run continuously. The year is divided into labelled periods, and on any given date the label determines what a college coach is permitted to do. There are four designations in common use, and the distinction between them is not how keen anyone is; it is which specific activity is allowed.
A contact period is the least restricted. During one, a college coach may watch a prospect play and may also have recruiting conversations with the prospect and their family away from the college campus. This is the designation that permits the familiar image of a coach visiting a school or a home.
An evaluation period permits watching but not talking. A coach may attend games, may assess how a player performs, and may review academic material, but may not conduct in-person recruiting conversations away from campus. Much of the summer club calendar sits in evaluation periods, which is why the sideline at a large summer event can be lined with coaches who will not say a word to anyone.
A quiet period reverses that. In-person contact is permitted, but only on the college's own campus. A family can visit, tour and meet staff; a coach cannot come out to watch a game in person. Stretches of the school season commonly carry this designation.
A dead period permits neither. No in-person contact and no in-person evaluation happens in either direction. Dead periods are typically placed around signing windows and holiday breaks, and they exist partly to create a settled stretch in which decisions can be made without anyone standing in a gym.
Two points are worth holding on to. The first is that these designations restrict in-person activity specifically; permitted forms of remote communication are governed separately and change more often, which is why it is unwise to treat any summary of them as current. The second is that the calendar is published in advance and by sport, so the label that applies to a given weekend in one sport says nothing about another.
For a family, the useful consequence is interpretive rather than procedural. Silence from a programme during an evaluation period is not indifference, because conversation is not available to them. A flurry of contact the moment a contact period opens is not a sudden change of heart, because the date simply changed. Reading interest from behaviour without reading the calendar first produces a great deal of unnecessary anxiety.
For a coach running a club team, the consequence is logistical. Where an event falls in the calendar determines who will be in the building and what they are able to do once they are there, which in turn shapes how the event weekend is structured and what the team is told to expect.
| Period type | What it governs | Where it applies | Section file |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact | In-person conversation away from a college campus is permitted alongside watching play | Both the school season and the club season, on the dates the calendar names | Recruiting Periods |
| Evaluation | Watching play and assessing academic records is permitted, but in-person recruiting conversation away from campus is not | Most heavily used across the summer club events | Recruiting Periods |
| Quiet | In-person contact is permitted only on the college campus itself | Commonly used across stretches of the school season | Recruiting Periods |
| Dead | No in-person contact and no in-person evaluation in either direction | Placed around signing windows and holiday breaks | Recruiting Periods |
Standing reference for this section: the period designation table on the desk board sets out what each recruiting period governs.
Return to the Recruiting Periods section on the desk board, or open the desk file index.