How Compliance Professionals are Supporting Global Talent
In his third year with Boston College Athletics, Dylan Jones serves as the Assistant Director of Compliance for Rules Education and Recruiting, originally starting out as a Compliance Assistant in 2022. Prior to Boston College, he had interned with Harvard Athletics and at the University of New England in their compliance offices as well as athletic administration.
As international student-athletes are continuing to increase in their numbers day by day, there are professionals at their respective universities who have dedicated their time and efforts each and every day to aid in this transition.
Dylan Jones is at the forefront of this movement at Boston College, working in the athletic compliance office, he is taking on a role in ensuring a smooth transition both academically and socially is achievable for these students.
“What I do is make sure that everybody who comes in is meeting certain guidelines that are set up by the NCAA for eligibility, which includes domestic kids. It includes international students as well. There’s quite a broad scope of student athletes that come in a year over a year, and it's becoming more and more frequent as other things influence it from the transfer portal, some of the NIL conversation as well. Now, as far as what we do specifically, it's not necessarily like reaching out to the student athlete,” Explained Jones. “ We are working in collaboration with coaches, mostly their sports administrators, to ensure that anybody who is incoming is making sure that they satisfy different elements of the eligibility center, different elements of initial eligibility. So, some requirements apply to domestic kids, but they do not apply to international students.”
But Jones helped better explain why there is such an influx of international students, not only at Boston College but all around the country, stating that these coaches are continuously developing stronger and stronger relationships with international coaches, aiding in the recruitment process as a whole.
“When you talk to universities at that level of athletics, the scope for the coaches is to recruit far and wide. Now, you will see some patterns, like when I first worked at Harvard, there were a lot of Icelandic girls. There were also a lot of Danish girls who ended up playing women's soccer there… So if they know club coaches in different countries, that may lead them to recruit more heavily in different areas because ultimately a little bit of the relationship, both building and establishing, is knowing where the kids are because you're dealing with a finite amount of resources, it's not necessarily possible to recruit across all of those different countries. So you're honing in on maybe a handful and relying on those contacts, whether or not it's club coaches, it could be some advisor on their end. So, making sure that one, you have those and two, you're working through them to make sure those different areas are satisfied.”
However, one of the most pressing concerns when looking at these international student- athletes and their eligibility is navigating the process of Visa regulations, as well as the infamous NIL opportunities.
“I think for a lot of us, there's a lot of uncertainty relating to the federal government. It's not specific to any particular administration; you constantly have shifts in that, whether or not it is Visas, it could be policies relating to international affairs. So it is an interesting time to examine that, because right now, I think there are a lot more questions out there than there are answers. I think there is quite strong anticipation that there will be changes in some form. However, right now, for us, more are trying to flesh out what this looks like from the House settlement standpoint.”
Joes continued to explain that changes to the structure for mostly the autonomy four conferences, such as the ACC, SEC, BIG 10, BIG 12, some of the mid majors as well that have opted in trying to figure out whether or not international students are able to receive NIL payments from their institutions or whether or not that would conflict with their visa requirements.
These student athletes can have jobs on campus for 20 hours or less, which fits within their Visa requirements.
However, Jones explained again that what that looks like moving forward, no one exactly knows.
“We're waiting for, to be honest, a lot of federal communication, whether that's from the Department of Homeland Security or the student in exchange. How it operates in our space is that if student athletes are international, the advice is to connect with some form of representation, whether that's their own lawyer or somebody that they confide in at home. A lot of flexibility has been given for international student- athletes outside of the domestic setting. So, for example, maybe a men's or women's basketball player engaging in NIL when they're not, quote, on duty for activities. So, say a team is traveling to Spain for a summer tour. They end up doing all their activities outside of the US, and therefore, it has no impact on their visa status domestically.”
But beyond the realm of eligibility and compliance, institutions like Boston College provide a wide range of support systems for these international student athletes to accumulate to life within the United States.
“Almost all universities that have international students have an office of international students that can help facilitate some of those adjustments, a piece of it too, could be through their peers. It may be through their coaches as well. Ultimately, setting up student athletes for success, whether or not they're domestic or international, is very unique. You can't treat everybody the same because that's not how the world works. So you have to figure out how to best facilitate the transition from wherever they're coming from to being in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts,” Jones explained. “It is an adjustment for some of our domestic kids, so I can imagine it is very difficult for some of our international kids as well. So it's important when they get here that they understand that there are support services for them for free as well. They have a bunch of services available from the Office of International Students. There are student-athlete academic services as well. So there are a bunch of things, both socially, academically, and then politically as well, to help them become more integrated into the university structure.”
For Jones and his colleagues, there is a strong understanding that there is a need to offer as much support as necessary to ensure that there are as many resources available as possible for these international student athletes.
Professionals like these are essential to the success of these young athletes and the support they are given is just the beginning to paving the way for these athletes to feel an easier and smoother transition.