Hey, no hard feelings about the new transfer rules, right, coaches?
Not long after the NCAA said players don’t need to get permission from their schools to transfer, Power Five conferences are changing the way scholarships are handled for players who want to transfer.
The NCAA announced Tuesday afternoon that “schools can cancel the aid of a student-athlete as soon as he or she provides written notification of transfer, but the aid may not be reduced or canceled until the end of the term. Schools can re-award the scholarship at the end of the term, subject to other financial aid rules.”
In plain terms, if a player decides that he or she wants to transfer in October, a school now has the right to cancel the player’s financial aid agreement at the conclusion of the fall semester.
The NCAA, being the NCAA, says this is simply a matter of fairness.
“In fairness to the transfer student-athlete’s teammates, coaching staff and overall team dynamic, the Division I [Student Athlete Advisory Committee] felt that a student-athlete should not be able to give notification, search for other opportunities, then return to their institution if dissatisfied with their options with no repercussions,” UMKC athlete Noah Knight said.
The sponsoring conference, the Big 12, noted that allowing schools to cancel aid immediately provided a measure of fairness to student-athletes remaining at a school.
If there’s one thing we know, it’s that coaches certainly behave fairly when confronted with the possibility of a player transfer.
Pure class, guys.
Get The Picture 
One step forward, five steps back.
Burn it down, Jeffrey Kessler, burn it down.
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Hell hath no fury like a $7m per year PE teacher scorned.
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Or just change the graduation requirements in your sociology program.
Problem solved.
S-E-C! S-E-C!
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Reminds me of that old Toyota commercial: ”You asked for it, you got it”
Fair is fair and this seems more than fair to me.
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Exactly, just as I’m sure you would agree it would be completely fair if you were required by a cartel to which your employer is a member to notify your employer and risk being fired prior to even putting out feelers for a different job. I’m sure you wouldn’t object to someone arbitrarily restricting your career opportunities like that through collusion no less.
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I could see a scenario where a coach from the state of Alabama makes life miserable for a young man whose football talents haven’t panned out the way he would like. Said kid decides to notify coaches of his intent to investigate a transfer. Coach then notifies kid that his financial aid will not be renewed at this university … roster management problem solved.
Does the fine print of this proposal allow said student whose financial aid agreement is terminated from becoming immediately eligible at his new school and the school has no ability to restrict said player’s options?
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Walk into your bosses office and tell him you are going to start interviewing at competitor’s firms and you will let him know if you are going to leave after you talk with them and see how that works out. Or; tell your wife you are going to start checking out other women and might want a divorce, you’ll let her know after you see what’s out there for you. Fair or not, the world doesn’t let you break a commitment without any consequences.
I don’t think either one of those scenarios would work out too great for you. One of the life lessons college student athletes are learning is; “decisions and actions have consequences”.
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Doesn’t that kinda prove my point. I’m under no obligation to tell my boss I’m looking around prior to accepting a job offer much less while I’m interviewing. It grants the employee a mechanism to, gasp, find better opportunities and allows employers a means to how experienced talent. Why should student athletes be forced to comply to a different standard than regular professionals.
Better yet, regular students at a university have no transfer restrictions. As someone who has constantly harped on how student athletes should be treated as regular students for admissions, why are you advocating they be treated differently if they want to transfer?
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I agree they should be able to transfer wherever they want and play immediately. My point is; if they tell the coach they are considering transferring, they should expect some repercussions. I guess it’s two separate issues.
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And this is why I would have someone else doing the looking. All of it, of course, would be here say. Kinda like when Eason transferred to UW. Seattle Times asked him if he had checked out UW before transfer and talked with them. Eason, “of course not, that is against the rules”. Now his Dad, of course was down there checking everything. Get someone to do your work.
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If you get caught interviewing with another firm, you don’t become unemployable and the other firm doesn’t get sanctioned. In the NCAA, that happens.
If you’re wife catches you interviewing with competitors, well, you f$&ked up, son… and you got caught…
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March 15: “Hey Coach, I am transferring in August. Maybe to a rival. In rhe meantime, I will continue to occupy a counter for the remwinder of the sprkng semester and both summer terms. I will use the weight room and training table. I will attemd all team strategy sessions. But I am gone the moment the second summer term ends. Cool?”
Anyone who says Smart would be cool with rhis is smoking crack.
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You’ve got your hypothetical, the article has another:
In any event, this seems to be the bigger issue:
And, remember, the conferences are still free to have their own transfer rules.
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They can cancel the financial aid anyway, without the transfer request, can’t they? That’s not new.
I suspect the practice of transfers will work like job hunting – don’t turn in your resignation until you have definitive options.
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Totally agree with your last thought there. You’d be crazy to announce prematurely… of course, that leads to the question of how you let other schools know you’re exploring the possibility of a transfer without putting your name in the database first.
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I’d have to think that’s where the parents (or, more likely, other relatives such as uncles or cousins) would come in and handle that so the kid had plausible deniability.
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Former coaches, throw that in.
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I bet there’ll be an app for that.
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Senator: Friends, relatives, anyone and it is all here say. If the second coach contacts the first, then deny, deny, deny.
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No one forcing the kid to play football or go to college
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Or pitch a fit because there are only 200 available options instead of 213. I don’t see why we act like the options aren’t there. It is like whining about having to split the lottery millions with another winner, who sympathizes with that level of greed? The university/conference has the right to protect themselves, and their product. Get back with me when they are blocked from plying their skills and developing their talent.
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Why should their options be limited more than yours, mine or any college coach’s?
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I don’t feel that qualifies as a meaningful limitation of options. Is it complete freedom to do whatever you want, when you want, and when you want?? No, but few things in life are as simple, or accommodating, as that. When weighed against the (potential) damage to the game with 100% free agency, and the disadvantage to the program that initially helped develop him, that just doesn’t measure up to and is minutiae to me as a complaint
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What’s the disadvantage?
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Disadvantage is the insider knowledge of system and athletes, and having a person you helped develop turn those skills on you (may not seem like much to you but that is not very tasteful to anyone who has faced it…and it isn’t necessary given the large pool of other options, so why not ban that school?)
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A much bigger factor for coaches who leave for rival programs.
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I’ve always been on the side of players having total freedom of transfer without having to sit out a year, and I’m also on the side of the players being paid above their scholarship and cost of attendance. I still am.
With that said, I don’t have a problem with this. The players at Northwestern attempted to unionize because they wanted to be considered employees of the university’s athletic department. It seems to me that college athletics can certainly be considered these athletes’ job. Well, if I quit my job, they quit paying me.
The analogy of students who are attending school on scholarships for academic work or fellowships gets brought up a lot when looking at college athletics. A student who is attending UGA on a scholarship for their work with the physics department on a research project is allowed to profit from that work if they make some discovery or secure some patent… they’re allowed to be paid money from whatever grants are involved… and they’re allowed to leave to continue that work at UNC next semester should they choose (leaving aside any potential intellectual property agreements, etc). Well, at the same time, if that student stops working on the project, their money from the stipends or grants also stops. If the student changes majors, the physics department is no longer going to pay their tuition. And, conceivably, if all benefits to the physics department end, I don’t expect that they’re going to pick up the tab for the student’s “gap” semester. Simply put, if you want Georgia athletics to pick up the tab for your spring semester, you’d probably better plan to be a Georgia student athlete for the spring semester. I’m all for throwing stones at the NCAA and the conferences for hypocrisy and unfairness. This particular development doesn’t ruffle my feathers.
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It’s certainly a Richard move to terminate a player’s scholarship simply for dipping a toe in the transfer waters, just like it’s pretty crummy to fire an employee when you find out they’re interviewing for other jobs. That does happen, though. It’s not the best way, in my humble opinion, to promote loyalty among your employees but a lot of (too many?) managers out there do it.
Nobody has asked me, but I say let’s treat the players like grownups, let’s get rid of the barriers that restrict them from the same freedom of movement that other college students have, let’s let them profit from their likenesses and names based on their unique talents, and then let’s also let them deal with some of the real world consequences that come from some of their decisions. You’re an adult at 18. I agree that this has the potential to bring about some unseemly results. In the grand scheme of unseemly NCAA rules, though, this is the one I’d schedule to fix last.
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I have no argument with that, but to paraphrase Rumsfeld, you transfer with the NCAA you have, not the NCAA you want or wish to have at a later time.
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This is what happens sometimes with compromises. People start poking holes in the inconsistencies.
Quid pro quo a bitch. (OK, not exactly tit for tat, but it is a compromise and negotiation)
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So basically to even test the waters and be able to contact others schools or be contacted, you have to give up everything. that seems fair.
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I don’t get the controversy on this one. If I’m a student and don’t pay for the next semester, its not a stretch of the imagination to conclude I can’t matriculate to the next round of classes.
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At the risk of repeating myself for the third time here, this new rule applies if all the player does is put his name in the database, which is not the same as transferring.
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In other news, Seth Emerson tweeted that Cal receiver and Savannah native Demetris Robertson has decided to transfer. According to Seth, Robertson is now “on the market.”
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Let him check with his brother/advisor who reportedly steered him away from UGA (assuming I am recalling the recruit’s name correctly) I stopped being interested in that guy when he went west.)
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and if he shows up on my lawn again, I am going to kick his ass, little panty waist, going out west. Harump, Harump.
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