For University athletes, looking at the face of a small child asking for an autograph is a challenge, especially when the child runs back to deposit his signed ball or jersey into the hands of an adult with a duffle bag.

“I’ve seen it with Tim Tebow, I’ve seen it with other student athletes to where — and I call them runners — a lot of these adult runners will send children to these student athletes to get autographs,” said Greg McGarity, the University’s athletic director. “So it’s one of these things to where, you just wish there was not that element of our society that’s out there that’s just thinking about profiting, back in the day when you just wanted an autograph for an autograph.”

But it could be a danger as well — the practice exposes a larger problem, as sellers marketing player autographs violate NCAA rules and could risk the eligibility of collegiate athletes. According to NCAA bylaw 12.5.2.2, if memorabilia is being sold or promoted using a student athlete’s name, such as an autograph, “the student-athlete (or the institution acting on behalf of the student-athlete) is required to take steps to stop such an activity in order to retain his or her eligibility for intercollegiate athletics.”

Aaron Murray and fellow student athletes sign autographs for waiting fans at Sanford Stadium.

The issue of collegiate athletes and autographs found a national audience after recent allegations against Ohio State’s football team led to the firing of the team’s head coach and suspension of several of its top athletes. At the heart of the allegations are incidents where student athletes swapped signed memorabiliafor free tattoos, and in one case, the star quarterback Terrelle Pryor was accused of selling autographs for profit.

“Whenever an institution deals with problems, like Tennessee, Southern Cal., Ohio State, you self-evaluate immediately,” McGarity said. “You see where there shortcomings were, you evaluate your controls, your systems so you basically kind of react to make sure that you don’t have those problems in your program.”

Georgia does not have the problems Ohio State has, but finding signed items from Bulldog athletes takes a simple Google search. Signed helmets, footballs and pictures of starting quarterback Aaron Murray and tailback Caleb King can be bought through auctions sites such as eBay for as much as $150. In fact, any college football fan can obtain a signed item for the nation’s top players, including Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck and Oregon running back LeMichael James, who are considered top candidates for next season’s Heisman Trophy.

“There’s a fuzzy line there,” said Dan Everett, owner of Sicumdog Signatures. “An athlete is prohibited by NCAA rules to sign autographs for any type of compensation. What a lot of dealers would question is if they went to Picture Day or if they went to Fan Day or Countdown to Kickoff and got Aaron Murray to sign a few pieces they want to sell in stores or online. They might question if it’s breaking NCAA rules because the players weren’t compensated.”

But it is putting athletes in jeopardy. Though the University does host autograph sessions with Bulldog athletes, it routinely acts on their behalf  to protect their identities, said Eric Baumgartner, University associate athletic director and compliance officer.

“Generally speaking, what happens is our student athletes sign memorabilia and the fans put it on eBay and sell it,” Baumgartner said. “So what we do, on a routine basis, we go on eBay and we send cease and desist letters to the individuals selling.”

He said by sending a cease and desist letter, they effectively protect the eligibility of the student athlete. Both McGarity and Baumgartner said to prevent the sales of autographed items, they try to educate athletes and encourage them to personalize autographs. But with many fans flocking to signing sessions, there’s not always time to personalize each item, and many of them can wind up for sale on the Internet.

“Well, we can’t be with them 24/7,” McGarity said. “I think what we can do is educate. . . We try to do the best job we can with education. Can we do better? Absolutely. Can we do a better job of educating our students? There’s no doubt about that, and we’re doing that.”

But college athletics is a big business and people will continue to clamor for signed memorabilia, no matter what a university does to stop it.

“UGA can write them all the letters they want, what is some Joe Schmoe who never went to college, what does it matter to him if the University of Georgia tells him to quit selling something,” Everett said. “He doesn’t care, he has no affiliation with the University or the NCAA. . .  It’s a line we don’t want to walk, but it’s a line a lot of companies do. It’s really questionable.”

In this game everyone wins except the athlete, but in recent years the appeal of making money off their name has led to NCAA trouble for several student athletes. McGarity is wary of the constant risks that come with leading one of the top athletics programs in the country.

“I think the one thing that keeps you up at night is 500 student-athletes, full-time staff of 275 and thousands and thousands and thousands of boosters,” McGarity said. “So are you going to have a rogue player? Are you going to have a rogue coach? Are you going to have a rogue booster that’s out there that says, ‘Rules be damned, I’m doing what I want to do, I’m in it for me?’ I think the temptation is always there.”