Earlier this week at the adidas ABCD Camp in Teaneck, N.J., Long Island Panthers AAU coach Gary Charles addressed the throng of college coaches gathered for the four-day event, which along with Nike All-American Camp, kicked off the recruiting season. Charles, who was working the adidas camp, was selling the coaches book, a thick binder filled with home addresses and phone numbers of the 200 plus kids attending camp.

Compiled by adidas, the book is a necessity for college coaches. But it's not cheap.

"I'm just speaking in general here, not to anyone specifically," said Charles, referring to new NCAA rules forbidding college coaches from having any contact (phone, faxes, pages, email or personal) with prospective players, their families, or AAU coaches during the month-long recruiting period. "But the book sells for $200. Oh, and it's $5 to get in the gym."

Iona assistant coach Tony Chiles laughed. Why not just charge $205 for the book.

"I'm just speaking in general here, not to anyone specifically," he said. "But do you really think I'm going to buy the book for $200 and just sit in the parking lot."

If the first week of the recruiting season proved anything, it's that new recruiting rules are just another hurdle that sneaker companies, AAU programs and college coaches will easily clear.

The rulebook keeps getting bigger, but college coaches seem undeterred. Drafted to reduce the influence of adidas and Nike and the AAU programs they help sponsor, the rules seem entirely misguided in design. The NCAA doesn't like when other people make money off their product, but adidas and Nike seem poised to do just that. A small example is adidas' coaches book. Just four years ago it sold for around $85.

Like most coaches, Chiles spent this first week figuring what exactly the new rules let him do. A Bronx native, Chiles knows just about everyone in NYC basketball circles, from high school and AAU coaches, to street agents, to the players and their families. In the past, he and other coaches were forbidden to talk to any prospective players during the month of July, although they could accidentally "bump" into them and say hi.

But the old rules said nothing about talking to the AAU coaches that work the camps and take the kids around the country to tournaments. If coaches were interested in a player they could ask the AAU coach if they thought the player was interested in them. Then when Aug. 1 rolled around and coaches were permitted to contact the players, they might know if they have a shot at landing him. This is no longer the case.

"You have guys you might have a 10-, 15-year relationship with," says Chiles referring to AAU coaches, "guys who sometimes know the kid better than the parents, and you can't talk to them."

The reasoning seems simple enough. AAU coaches have a lot of power. Some serve as surrogate agents for big time players and make behind-the-scenes deals. Some, like former New Orleans Jazz coach Thad Foucher, go on to become real agents. The NCAA thinks that limiting their power will help the high school coach play a larger role in a kid's recruitment, but in reality, the new rules also open the door for shady characters to influence where a kid ends up going to school. Street agents can't be touched and now their services are more valuable than ever.

Not surprisingly, there are other complications.

An Iona player served as a counselor at the Eastern basketball camp in Newark, N.J., but Chiles' compliance officer told him talking to the kid to try and get an idea about prospective players is not allowed. That's too bad for someone like Kansas' Roy Williams. Four of his players served as counselors at Nike.

And what about NBA personnel? There are no restrictions on them working the camps or talking to players and coaches.

Chiles spent most of his time at Nike observing kids Iona is interested in. "Just smiling and letting them know I was here," he says.

He also watched kids from the New York City area, making several calls to high school coaches back home to update them on how well the locals looked. And he talked to a lot of fellow college coaches.

Being connected in the New York means a lot of college coaches call to ask Chiles for the word on local players. During the last day at Nike, an assistant from a big time school inquired about Gary Ervin, a point guard from Roberson H.S. in Brooklyn. At one point, Iona was recruiting Ervin, but they're concerned about his ability to make the grade. Apparently, the kid has no pencil. Chiles volunteered to help, but he told the assistant he had doubts whether Ervin was going make either "the core or the score".

"Oh, well that's not really a problem for us," said the assistant.

The more things change ...

John Gustafson is a writer for ESPN The Magazine.