UCOMPLIANCE: A Strong Foundation for Hurricane Sports
By Nate Bradley
HurricaneSports.com
With so many different NCAA rules to keep track of, it takes a significant amount of time and effort to ensure that a university is up to standard.
The University of Miami Compliance department, also known as UCompliance, is responsible for working with student athletes, coaches, boosters and fans to maintain the school’s reputation. Dan Raben, Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance, provided insight as to how UCompliance impacts athletics in variety of ways.
According to Raben, the role of UCompliance is to “make sure that everyone is educated properly on what the rules are and how they apply in any given circumstances.”
On a day-to-day basis, what UCompliance does changes based on the time of the year.
“If it’s the beginning of the semester, we’re certifying everyone for practice and competition, we’re inputting financial aid and stipend checks into our system, our monitoring efforts are constant and our educational efforts are constant,” Raben said.
UCompliance operates under an open-door policy that encourages coaches and athletes to approach with any questions or concerns that they may have.
One of the major focuses of the NCAA in recent years is social media and the many ways that technology is used to contact prospective athletes.
“The rules are constantly trying to play catchup,” Raben said. “They’re several years behind in the technology in terms of how the next generation communicates. UCompliance embraces the evolution in the rule changes. It keeps us on our toes because we have a great sports information department that is constantly asking us ‘how far can we go?’ and they want to be at the forefront of the industry for being creative and we want people around the country to go to their compliance department to ask, ‘how did Miami do that?’ because they want to follow us. Everybody in our athletic department is really great about reaching out and finding out how to maximize social media.”
One way that UCompliance has used social media to their advantage is through creating a Twitter account (@UCompliance) that educates the fans and acts as another link between the UM athletics and the community.
“There’s a reason they call it social media, because part of it is entertainment and as a compliance office, we try and put out information that’s topical and about our brand,” Raben said. “The account has been very successful as people have used it to ask questions and encourage discussion on recent events. It has been pivotal to showing the NCAA that UM and fans alike are trying to spread awareness and understanding of the rules.
In addition, UCompliance works closely with the Academic Support Staff in order to provide student-athletes with the best possible chance of success.
“The institution’s main mission is higher learning,” Raben said. “Athletics plays a key role being the ‘front porch’ of the university and I feel we are all in the business of transforming lives.”
The UM athletic department is responsible for making UM one of the best academic programs in the country posting a Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 91 percent.
“There are two key areas that we look at when we work with our academic staff,” Raben said. “First, we make sure that our prospective athletes meet the minimum academic standards for the NCAA to become a qualifier so that they’re immediately eligible for practice, financial aid and competition when they get here. We set them up to be successful from day one.
“There’s also the continued eligibility, because once an athlete is here, they need to meet certain benchmarks to remain eligible for competition. We work hand in hand with the academic office to track all of that so if someone is falling behind or is coming close to not meeting a benchmark, we make sure they’re aware and give them the help needed to get back on track. We don’t cut corners because we want to uphold the academic integrity of the university. There is never a question about whether our student-athlete actually earns the grade they get or not.”
When asked about how the fanbase impacts UCompliance, Raben said, “Miami has one of the most passionate fanbases in the country and because of that, they have a strong presence on social media and there are instances where we come across it in our office. I wouldn’t trade our fanbase with any other on though because the energy they bring is palpable. Without the fans, we don’t have this department. The fans are the ones that are the supporters whether they’re donating to our athletic department or not. There’s something special about The U and that’s something I enjoy being a part of.”
