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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tis the season for grassroots movements, community organizing, participation and non-participation. But this fall, those things aren\u2019t exclusive to the political climate and the 2016 election.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It\u2019s trickled down to college athletics, all the way to women\u2019s basketball. &amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Friday marks the first day of the last evaluation period of 2016, a three-day window in which Division I coaches can watch recruitable prospects. Originally designed as an event for uncommitted seniors, the fall evaluation period has ballooned to include events for players as young as freshmen in high school, with players spilling into the gym in hopes of catching the eye of a college coach. But in a twist, the chairs reserved for D-I coaches might stay empty all weekend, as the Power 5 coaches have organized a protest, and banded together with the intention of boycotting the evaluation period for a host of reasons.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Over the last week, &lt;em&gt;SI.com&lt;/em&gt; spoke about the protest with numerous Power Five coaches, almost all of whom requested anonymity. The first thing all wanted to make clear: \u201Cboycott\u201D is too strong a word. They are not trying to make any sort of statement in anger, coaches said, but trying to do what\u2019s best for their program. For most, that means staying home this weekend.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reason for the protest\u2014or non-boycott boycott\u2014is threefold, according to coaches.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, many are fed up with the price of tournament packets, booklets of rosters that college coaches receive upon paying their entry fee. Packets are supposed to be chock-full of contact information for the prospects, but sometimes aren\u2019t accurate or up-to-date. (This has become a well-documented issue on the men\u2019s side of college hoops. CBS Sports\u2019 Gary Parrish wrote on it this summer.) Furthermore, there are so many events now that college coaches are often forced to pay obscene amounts of money to watch just one player at a single event, and play recruiting hopscotch around the country, criss-crossing the nation to see so many events and spend thousands of dollars. One Power Five coach said her staff crunched the numbers, and found that in just two years, they\u2019ve spent more than $4,000 more than they did in 2014 on packets alone. Another coach told a story of sending an assistant across the country for one day, to one event, to watch one team. When the assistant arrived, the team had left early for its next event. No refund was available for the college that had paid what turned out to be a useless entry fee. The head coach called it \u201Cexasperating.\u201D &amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, coaches are concerned the September calendar in general is out of control. Along with an evaluation weekend, coaches are visiting juniors for initial in-home visits, and hosting seniors for on-campus visits before the November signing period. And this all takes place with their current team in school, demanding attention and on-court instruction. &amp;nbsp;One veteran coach, who has run a top-20 program for more than a decade, said coaches go into living rooms and \u201Cmake all these promises about being there for kids\u2014but then we have to go on the road all of September. How does that make sense?\u201D Taking time away from kids on campus, one assistant explained, ultimately holds the game back. In order to grow women\u2019s basketball in the market, the product needs to be better. But how can coaches develop talent if they\u2019re never on campus? &amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Third, many coaches\u2014especially women\u2014are worried about work-life balance, and if it\u2019s even feasible in an industry with skyrocketing salaries and millions of dollars pouring into college athletics because of television contracts, all of which adds up to increased pressure. July has long been reserved for recruiting season but on the women\u2019s side, there\u2019s the September evaluation period &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; two spring evaluation periods, plus all the on-campus recruiting and in-home visits. It\u2019s a dizzying amount of work. One female coach said that young coaches especially and \u201Cabsolutely\u201D feel pressure to go on the road every day that they can, often wearing themselves and their staffs down before games have even started in November.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So will the protest work and create change? No one is quite sure. But according to UCLA coach Cori Close, it\u2019s time to get some concrete numbers.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI\u2019m not mad at anyone,\u201D said Close, who is about to begin her fifth season in Westwood, and sits on the NCAA\u2019s Ad Hoc Committee, which constantly reviews the recruiting calendar and makes recommendations to the oversight committee about potential schedule changes, additions or subtractions.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThis is not an angry boycott. There are some really good event operators out there \u2026 but in September, between the evaluation period and visits, we are spending a lot of money. So we said, let\u2019s get some realistic data. Let\u2019s not go out, and see how it plays out. Maybe we\u2019ll even keep (the calendar) the way it is.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conversations about banding together and skipping the evaluation period started in July, at a recruiting event in Augusta, Ga. By August, coaches were circulating emails to take the temperature of each of the Power Five conferences. (In women\u2019s collegiate basketball, the American Conference, home of perennial power UConn, would be considered the sixth \u201CPower Five\u201D school because of the influence Geno Auriemma wields.) &amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There was some, but not total, consensus: The Pac-12, which had two teams in the 2016 Final Four (Oregon State and Washington) voted in solidarity to not go out this weekend. Close praised her conference\u2019s willingness to come together on the issue, noting the sacrifice made by programs like Arizona and Colorado, both of which have new coaches and are trying to put together viable rosters for the immediate future.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other conferences played coy when asked what was going on. In a survey conducted by &lt;em&gt;SI.com&lt;/em&gt;, many coaches wouldn\u2019t give specifics on their plans for this weekend, merely saying they\u2019d be participating, as a staff, in \u201Crecruiting.\u201D They declined to verify if that recruiting would take place on, or off, campus.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One reason to not get too detailed: Coaches are worried about potential backlash from event operators and AAU coaches.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI really believe in a lot of event operators,\u201D Close said. \u201CI want to listen and learn from them. I know a lot of them are good, and really in it to help kids. To me, if someone threatens something [like refusing to send a player to a particular coach or campus] that will show who\u2019s in it for the right reasons.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some coaches erred on the side of being blunt about their plans. Through a UConn spokesman, Geno Auriemma said that while his staff will spend the month recruiting, \u201CI just felt like there was nothing for us to go see that we hadn't already seen. Our time can be better spent on campus.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Syracuse confirmed that its coaches will also skip the evaluation period. That means that none of the 2016 Final Four teams will be represented in gyms this weekend. \r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Still, others have been vocal in their plans to hit the road. Maryland\u2019s Brenda Frese, who won the 2006 national championship and most recently led her team to the 2015 Final Four, is one of those coaches.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI feel obligated to recruits, to my university and to my family,\u201D Frese said. \u201CI need to do my job.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Frese was on a foreign trip with her team in Italy in late August when she heard plans about the boycott and felt at that point, it was too late for such a drastic move. \u201CBy the time it came up, I had already committed to recruits, and told them they\u2019re going to see me in the stands,\u201D she said.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;She has other concerns, too. \u201CI\u2019m a team player, but why are we doing it? I\u2019ve heard a lot of mixed things. Is it over the price of the packets, or that we don\u2019t want the evaluation period? \u2026 I don\u2019t know what the answer is, but I know that I\u2019m going out recruiting.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And yet Frese understands, and shares, the concern about overall spending. On a recent cross-country recruiting trip for an in-home visit, she balked at a $400/night hotel per-room cost for her and her staff. She acknowledges that among Power Five schools, cost isn\u2019t really an issue because athletic departments that make money off football have cash to spend. But at a school like University of Missouri-Kansas City, where Frese\u2019s sister Marsha is the head coach, they don\u2019t have unlimited funds.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then there\u2019s the chatter that some event operators and club coaches are in it for themselves\u2014and to stuff their own pockets.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;***\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mike Flynn has spent most his adult life working in women\u2019s basketball, first as a reporter, then as a coach and founder of the Philly Belles AAU club (most famous alum: Breanna Stewart) and Blue Star Media. He\u2019s run camps and college showcases since 1981, and will be in the gym this weekend, too. He says any and all college coaches are welcome to swing by. And for the record, he doesn\u2019t seem to appreciate all the vague talk from coaches. If there\u2019s a problem, he says, people need to be specific about it.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhat we have is a massive cowardice from today\u2019s head coaches to say exactly who the problem is,\u201D Flynn says. \u201CIt doesn\u2019t help when you have an event operator like Brandon Clay abusing girls\u2019 basketball opportunities \u2026 Everybody is entitled to make what they can. But if he wants to flaunt his success, he should be on the boys\u2019 side. Those type of things hurt the integrity of girls\u2019 basketball.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Clay owns and operates Peach State Hoops, an organization that runs numerous collegiate showcase events and claims to be, \u201Cthe leader for women\u2019s basketball player rankings, recruiting news and evaluations,\u201D according to its website. Clay has fallen under fire from coaches across the country for what many feel are overpriced Peach State events, where play on the court often doesn\u2019t match the value of the college coaches\u2019 entry fee. Clay declined an interview request from &lt;em&gt;SI.com,&lt;/em&gt; but offered his blog as a window into his thinking. Writing from a businessman\u2019s perspective, Clay said that as a leader of a for-profit business, has to \u201Ctackle many of the same questions regarding budgets, scheduling and time that these [college] programs do. So it is no surprise that each fall some programs utilize the fall weekend in their planning and others do not.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Flynn isn\u2019t convinced that come tipoff, college coaches\u2019 chairs will actually be empty. \u201CIf you want my take, about 50 percent will stay home. If you take out those who have home football games\u201D\u2014and therefore, are likely hosting 2017 prospects\u2014\u201Cthe other 50 percent are gonna go out. What else are they going to do? Bravo for those who do go out; it opens up opportunities for other (players). If coaches aren\u2019t going to go to abusive events, double bravo.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As recruiting gets bigger and bigger for more college sports\u2014there\u2019s an argument to be made that it\u2019s already out of control in football and men\u2019s hoops\u2014Flynn thinks there needs to be more regulation. He says he has repeatedly \u201Crequested that the NCAA put in stronger guidelines to deal with the explosion of irreputable events and scouting services, and nothing has been done.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So what\u2019s the end game? No one seems quite sure.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Close says that while \u201Cthere is never gonna be a perfect solution for everyone involved,\u201D the move by most Power Five coaches to sit out this weekend has, at the very least, been a good conversation starter between coaches and event operators. She estimates that 90 percent of Power Five schools will stay home.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI do think that coaches have complained about a lot of things for a long time and now it\u2019s like, oh my gosh, they\u2019re going to do something about that!\u201D she said. \u201CThere\u2019s a healthy dialogue taking place now. And I don\u2019t know if that would have happened unless there was a major change.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Close and other coaches acknowledge the importance of the fall evaluation period for mid-major and lower division schools. Flynn questions if anything will actually change, because he wonders if coaches with influence\u2014as in, coaches who win a lot at the highest\u2014are truly motivated to shake things up. He says that\u2019s not the only problem.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThere\u2019s no vision for where we need to be, because legislation goes through too many hands, and those hands [of administrators] are often not familiar with today\u2019s issues. And, when you\u2019re at the top, all you care about is, \u2018Don\u2019t mess up &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; space, don\u2019t change &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; routine.\u2019 That\u2019s why there\u2019s no change. Top coaches who sit on committees don\u2019t want to see change, because it may make them uncomfortable.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is proposed legislation on the table that would eliminate the September evaluation period as well as one of the spring evaluation periods in April. The vote on both proposals would occur next April, and go into effect for the 2017-18 school year. Until then, there are plenty of open seats for college coaches in the gym. Friday, players and event operators will find out if anyone wants to sit in them.&amp;nbsp;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2016/09/23/womens-college-basketball-recruiting-boycott>