As newly-hired offensive line coach J.B. Grimes arrived on the Texas A&M campus in February and started pouring over depth charts and mortgage rates, he had more pressing matters on his mind.

This, after all, was not Virginia Tech anymore. He had just been hired at Compliance U, and there were phone logs to fill out. Calls to his family back in Blacksburg, Va. Calls to offensive lineman Taylor Whitley in Sudan. Maybe a late-nighter to Dominoe's for some college-town cuisine.

It didn't matter. Every call had to be charted and accounted for. Big Brother -- or Ol' Sarge -- was watching his every move. Every day.

Such is the athletic way of life at A&M, where NCAA rules violations have handcuffed the school for the last four years. And based on A&M's history, the cuffs won't come off in January, either, when the latest five-year probation by the NCAA ends.

As Compliance Director Tedi Ellison will attest to, A&M should consider itself on probation for life. The margin of error for slip-ups will remain at zero.

The 1992 summer job scandal, which was primarily an isolated incident of slacking, sleeping football players, was comparable to a third-rate burglary at the Watergate Office Complex. What was recently uncovered at Texas Tech was all the Red Raiders' Men covering up a sea of covert operations.

Still, both schools suffered penalties, albeit rather light ones on the South Plains. But A&M was a repeat offender, and so the hammer came down with no television or a bowl game during the 1994 season.

But when R.C. Slocum stood on the podium on a January afternoon when the penalties were announced in '94, he was positive in his analysis of what had just unfolded. Texas A&M, he said, would learn and grow from this.

He was right, and the school remains at the top of the compliance mountain. Schools now have the speed-dial set to College Station when they want to learn how to monitor athletes, coaches and alumni.

Ellison has served on an NCAA compliance committee, and the perception of the school continues to improve from a national scope.

But now comes perhaps the first major test for Aggies everywhere. The school that had problems with summer jobs must now deal with athletes being allowed to work year-round while competing in their respective sports.

Is it a nightmare for A&M? Well, yes, it's another red-tape hassle Ellison and career center liaison Jennifer Bohac must deal with. It's another worry Slocum and the rest of the A&M coaches must take to bed each night.

Slocum, for one, isn't pleased with the idea of athletes taking more time away from a busy schedule to earn up to $2,000 during the academic year from September to May.

"(The NCAA) came to us a few years ago and said the kids aren't having time to do their schooling," Slocum said. "Here a few short years later, now they can study, play ball and work. Anyone who thinks that is good for college football players don't know the schedules these players have.

"I think it's bad legislation, and most of the coaches I've talked to feel the same way."

Indeed, a few years ago, the NCAA ruled players could practice and meet with coaches for only 20 hours a week to ensure their studies weren't being ignored. The NCAA also kept contact between the coaches and players to a minimum during the offseason, while now, the distance between overzealous alumni and players has been closed.

A&M currently sends Bohac on the road during the summer to monitor the summer job situation for all athletes. But even the 3,000 miles traveled and 70 on-site visits can't ensure an employer won't overstep company bounds.

"We have monitored it, and we have some checks," Slocum said. "But there's no foolproof way. We've put an elaborate system in place. But the reality is, if someone wants to conspire to break the rules, it can be done.

"In the history of mankind, there's never been anybody who can legislate wrongdoers from doing wrong."

Fortunately for the A&M football program, most players aren't deciding to work during the season or the spring semester as well. And just a handful of players were not in College Station this summer to prepare for another grueling season.

Bohac said her office has not been busy placing athletes in jobs during the school year. But should athletes take advantage of the new legislation, she says a plan is in place to keep tabs on every job.

"We monitor it so closely," Bohac said. "You worry about it all the time because it could happen right under our noses. But I think (employers) know we're serious about it. We'll be monitoring even more closely than the summer jobs because of (the past)."

Some big-city schools (Houston or SMU) could use the new work rule to their advantage during recruiting, pushing the fact that more jobs are available in their markets compared to towns like College Station. Still, A&M coaches don't seem overly concerned with the new rule.

A&M baseball coach Mark Johnson said the rule will have little effect on his players, many of whom sign with A&M on a partial scholarship.

"Philosophically, I think it's a great rule," said Johnson, whose team consists of just 11.7 scholarship athletes. "I think it's going to be hard for (the student-athletes) to do it. Everybody we recruit doesn't have a major need for it, so I don't see it being a big issue."

Johnson said the pressures and time schedules the athletes are under at the major programs are unrelenting at times. In baseball, for instance, the season begins with workouts in January and continues until June. Fall camps are held as well, reducing any offseason "free time" to nil.

"I think it's a nice thing to have available," Johnson added. "For the big Division I schools, I don't know if they can pull it off."

Bohac said no school is prepared for the new in-season employment like Texas A&M. She already has fielded calls from Florida State, Baylor, and yes, Texas Tech to see how the Aggies do things.

A&M learned the art of summer job monitoring the hard way, but the lessons have lifted A&M to new heights in compliance. A&M has gone from reactive to proactive on the issue.

"There's a lot of people starting from scratch, so I'm glad we're ahead of the game," Bohac said. "No one does the monitoring that we do."