The one-time transfer rule was the worst-kept secret.
Let me ask you a question. Do you think more than 2,000 college football players and 1,000 basketball players would have entered the transfer portal if they still had to sit out a year at their new schools?
So why was the unanimous one-time transfer rule that passed Wednesday even put to an official vote? The NCAA should have sent out an email that said, “The worst-kept secret in the history of college sports is now official. Athletes can transfer one time to another school and not have to sit out a year; you know, the transfer rule that kept thousands of athletes from transferring in the past.”
What is going on in college sports anyway? Who assured all the agents, coaches and players who started maneuvering and recruiting athletes around that this change was a done deal?
Do you think Walker Kessler would have entered the transfer portal less than 48 hours after Carolina’s season ended unless he knew he could play right away in whatever uniform he put on?
Why has the number of athletes in the portal quadrupled suddenly? Why was Roy Williams so sure it would happen that he called it the worst piece of NCAA legislation ever two months ago? Do you think Bruce Pearl or some one from Auburn had contact with the Kessler family during the season?
If Mark Few and Gonzaga, one of the squeakiest clean programs in the country, was doing it, then certainly so was Pearl, who you remember got caught cheating and given a three-year banishment from the bench and was rewarded with a seat on the ESPN set.
Clearly, most fans don’t know or care, so why should the NCAA try to hide anything at all. Make rules that you say protect the game, then make rules that give the athletes more power and freedom, even though you can’t do both of those things and still have honest amateurism. Make up your minds, because it’s no good either way.
What about the athletes who think it is the coach’s fault they didn’t play and go somewhere else and find out the first coach was right? And what about the schools that spend two or three years recruiting them and then lose coached-up kids who are far more ready to play than high school seniors to another program? Both stink.
(featured photo via Associated Press)
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