clt asks what do Charlotte and appy students have in common?
Both were accepted into appy
1 Like
[FYI - below is June 26th news. Had to do an edit since NN.N won’t allow me to post more than 3 consecutive posts on a thread I didn’t start]
FIFY 
Knew it seemed like a number of Ivy League players were showing up in the transfer portal and there’s a reason for that - only undergrad athletes are allowed with a maximum of four years of eligibility.
One time transfer allowance just is another step in making college sports pointless.
clt says this is becoming chaos
I try to take a step back and consider what’s the right thing to do for the student athletes. There can be rule changes that affects my overall enjoyment of a sport or that negatively impacts my fandom, but I’m not gonna rail against it if it’s just the right thing to do.
That’s how I look at transfer rules. As a matter of principal, students should be able to go wherever whenever they want without penalty. Students having complete liberty and freedom of choice to do what’s right for them is just plain fair. Now, whether that helps or hurts a program I support like Charlotte, I can’t let that change my opinion of what’s fair.
2 Likes
It is somewhat of a two way street. There is time and money spent in recruiting players and when that player enters into a contract they have to have some type of accountability. It is not fair to any institution to put forth that type of effort only to see a kid bail whenever they want without penalty.
I know that when these kids make the commitment they are only 17 years, maybe 18 years old. That said make a commitment to the military and try to just leave whenever you want to. We all make decisions in life and sometimes we make a bad decision. We should own that decision and do what is best and right to get out of it. I see nothing wrong with the current transfer model. They should do more for kids like football where the season doesn’t count against you if you play less than x number of games.
I agree, I think the current transfer rules with the portal, grad transfer immediate eligibility, and waiver process is more than fair. I think some are so cynical of the NCAA (with good reason) that they can’t give them credit for anything positive.
Without the current rules I’m afraid it will become chaos. I hear all of the arguments that coaches can leave whenever they want for greener pastures and I understand that complaint but I believe most of the time when a coach leaves the NCAA is pretty forgiving of players who wish to transfer due to the coaching change. If they are not I would be all for making it easier in that situation. My fear is that schools like Charlotte will become the minor league feeder system for P5’s without the threat of having to sit a year. I don’t even like to think about it but there would be nothing stopping Young or any other young outstanding player from moving up to a P5 after increasing their profile for one year in a lower level conference. Of course the B10 and ACC are all for this. It will benefit them more than it will hurt them because they are destination schools and not just stepping stones like we will become. Even more so than we already have been over the last 10 years.
I wouldn’t mind a rule that forbade a coach from leaving after one year, not sure how legal that would be though.
The law of unintended consequences will kick in if players are able to more freely transfer. Athletic scholarships today are one year “contracts”, and players could be released if they did not meet expectations. That rarely happens. If a kid is given a scholarship, they can usually continue their education even if they never leave the bench. However, if the best players on a team leave to “move up” coaches will need to be continuously recruiting to backfill those unexpected openings. Not knowing how many players they will need until the last minute, figuring out where to put the players they offer is going to become a new problem. I suspect coaches will have to look at scholarhips 9-13 as “flex spots” where they can bump non-contributors and fill them with other players that are looking to move up to our level. If players will have less committment to schools, schools will move towards less committment to them. At the end of the day some kids are going to be helped, others hurt, and fans are going to lose their connection with better players which probably means with the team.
You can’t really bump non-contributors - which is a point many people don’t realize. Almost every (if not every) Division I conference has adopted 4-year scholarships. That’s a commitment from the school to honor your scholarship even if you fail to live up to expectations. So you bring in a Martin Iti who you’d rather see ride the pine - well, he gets to keep his scholarship (provided he still fulfills his obligations of going to class, etc.) and you can’t pull it for someone better. You can make it know to the SA that he won’t get playing time and he can make that decision for himself - but it’s a one-sided commitment. That student still gets free tuition, books, room and board, training, clothes, food, travel, etc.
Further, if a kid comes in and blows the doors off of it and jumps to the NBA after 2 years, the school lets him go. But right now, if that kids flames out after 5 years in the NBA and wants to come back to finish his degree, by NCAA rules, the school has to give him free tuition and books out to 10 years, despite the fact that he only fulfilled his obligation to the school for a year or two. They still have to honor the scholarship for up to a decade out.
As someone mentioned earlier, the NCAA gets little credit. Especially when there are changes that the NCAA Membership votes on (as proposed by its committees/subcommittees made up by its membership), and then the same membership bad mouths them and trashes a new rule THAT WAS SUPPORTED.
Comparing an athletic commitment and a military commitment it’s too easy. I went the military route, so let’s not debate the awful ways in which those commitments are forced.
Any other student, espexially athletes in the non-major sports is the closest comparison. And then obviously, those of us in the professional world where we have complete freedom to go wherever whenever is also a fair comparison.
I get it, this would be bad for schools at our level, but again that’s not what sways my opinion. I also get that the NCAA does allow some flexibility on a case-by-case basis, but it just can’t account for holding those students to a different level of commitment as compared to other students.
And as far as the investment that goes into recruiting these kids, that is a business decision. These programs budget money to recruit kids, and it is totally up to them to recruit kids they think will not just use them to step up. Not that it’s easy, I’m just saying they make choices on who and who not to recruit, and that’s just the business model. whether it’s about the kid transferring or they just flame out and don’t live up to expectations, there are many ways in which a school will not recoup their investment in someone.
And speaking of investment, look at how much money program spend on outside consulting firms to find new coaches. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to find a coach who then leaves after one or two successful seasons. I don’t hear anyone in the NCAA screaming about that.
2 Likes
First off - a comparison to the regular student body is inapt. SAs get free tuition, books, room and board, food, clothing, travel, training, cost of attendance stipend, personal assistants/tutors, etc. Their “income” per year is huge - whereas a member of the regular student body, even if he or she receives a half scholarship, is paying for all of those things and not getting the accouterments that comes with an SAs lifestyle (clothes, travel, training, etc.). Additionally, the SA gets preferential treatment in admission, etc. So a guy who could only go to Maryland normally now gets to go to Princeton, etc. This is all in consideration for what is supposed to be a commitment and the student athlete can break that commitment while the school cannot.
If you go to Georgetown you get Tuition, Room, and Board. That’s a little north of $75,000 per year. Then let’s say you get personal training for 10 hours per week for 40 weeks per year. At the dirt cheap price of $25/hour, that’s another $10k. Same thing with personal tutoring - there’s another $10k. Now, the basketball team went on an all-expense paid trip to Jamaica this year. Also, this doesn’t include food. So what the athlete gets is pretty incredible when you start to add it up, particularly when all of the risk is really with one party. If an SA is unhappy with the situation then he can move on, but only with the penalty of a sit out year (which can be a redshirt year and which can be waived if there are extenuating circumstances). Oh, and if you want to leave early to try out the professional market in the NBA or Europe, do poorly and want to return - SURE, we’ll pay for you to come back for no charge.
And people do yell and scream about it with coaches, just with less vigor because coaches have penalties in their contracts. They don’t have to sit out a year, but they have $$ penalties and requirements for home games, etc. Additionally, if a coach is not performing, there is a way for the school to break their commitment to the coach. So coaches and schools can both move on (unlike with SAs) and there are penalties in the contract if the coach moves to another school.