Two weeks ago-- yes, we're a bit late on this one-- Sara Lipka at the Chronicle of Higher Ed filed a big story on recruiting and text messaging. Earlier claims that nonstop text-messages hadn't reached men's-side recruiting appear to be wrong: sought-after high schoolers who bought the wrong cell-phone plan now find themselves paying hundreds of dollars just to get the messages that coaches wish they didn't have to send.

It's a classic Red Queen's Race, you might say, or a classic market failure, crying out for a regulatory body to save the competitors from themselves. But a total ban appears unlikely, and Andrew Galbraith, compliance director at Dartmouth, warns Lipka that any new "middle ground" rules will prove "murky": "more people [will] innocently break the rules."

Why shouldn't the NCAA start treating text messages (which require a phone, after all) exactly as if they were regular telephone calls?