Currently the NCAA has a rule in place that states, If a player graduates from a school he is then transfer to any school in the country and be egibile to play immendentaly. Oppose to the normal transfer that requires the play sit out a year and lose a year of elfiblity. This is great for the players because it gives them the second chance to play if they are unable to get playing time at their first choice school. But recently this rule has come undefire as mid-majors are losing player to bigger schools. For example teams like Drexel take will take average high school players coach and build them up only to lose them during their 4th or 5th year of egelbilty to Penn State. While this sucks for Drexel and is very rewarding for Penn State, there benefits and losses should not be the reason why this rule is dissolved. There are tons of rules that help school lock in players such as National letters of Intents and how teams wait till after national signing days to announce coaching moves because of fear athletes will chose to follow a coach to his new school or pick a different school entirely. Locking a student into a intuition they no longer want to with and if they choose to leave they lose a year of playing eligibility.
Graduate Student Rule
This is causing problems because it keeps certain programs at the forefront of college basketball and football by giving them the ability to recruit already in college players. To the point that every major sports outlet has a top transfer recruit list. Not at all what the NCAA intended for this rule. This also points to the integrity of the mid-major programs and how the term student-athlete truly matters to them. How can you be promoting a student first environment if they don;t promote a rule and world that makes it in the best interest for student to graduate one-time or earlier. With out this rule we may see a situation were students are stretching out college to 5 years or not graduating all because it doesn’t matter to there eligibility. Another crucial advantage for students is that if they graduate as redshirt junior or sophomore they can stay at their new school for 2 – 3 years. Which is more then enough time to further his education and actually finish a graduate program if they can apply and receive the NCAA postgraduate scholarship. This rule must stay in tact because it is beneficial to the student-athletes to control not only where they play but their education. The NCAA must uphold a standard that players come before the individual programs success and revenue.
Kenneth C Grozier says
I personally think that the graduate rule is a good one. It’s important to remember that a player who wants to transfer can only transfer to a school that offers a graduate program that their current school doesn’t. So this hypothetical player would have to find a grad program that they can’t get at Drexel that they could at Penn State. A lot of players aren’t willing to change their entire career path (when there is no guarantee that they’ll play at the professional level) just for an extra year of eligibility. Penn State lacrosse had a faceoff specialist that transferred from Yale of all places so that he could play one more year and go to the MLL. Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t played professionally and now has a Penn State degree instead of an Ivy League one. All in all I don’t feel like this problem is too widespread because of the risks and future implications it might have on the athlete.
Montana D Morris says
I agree that these mid majors losing players is a shame, but I wonder how widespread the problem is. In recent years, the freshmen stars have been the ones on the highlight reels during the national championships. Look at Duke this year. They were very young. Someone who graduated and still hasn’t been drafted is usually someone who can not compete at that level. I completely agree that in cases of teams which aren’t producing stars like Penn State, the problem is very evident. Interesting article