Despite new NCAA rule, student-athletes not totally free

Can we have a round of polite applause, please, for a refreshing whiff of freedom that major colleges finally granted their scholarship athletes Wednesday?

Beginning Oct. 15, Division I athletes will no longer have to drop to bent knee and beseech their schools for permission to transfer to another school in order to keep athletic-related aid. Instead, they can, in essence, advertise themselves as free agents on an NCAA-administered website.

Sort of.

The catch here is that while the NCAA says they are free to transfer to the school of their choice and receive immediate scholarship aid at their new home, conferences may still cling to rules that are more restrictive than the national rule and can still penalize an athlete for changing schools within the same conference by forcing them to lose eligibility.

Full emancipation, it seems, will have to wait a little longer.

It is a reminder that, for all the significance of Wednesday’s announcement by the NCAA, athletes still have a way to go to catch up with their coaches and administrators. Either of those two groups can leave their current employer one day and be at work for another the next day.

Similarly, regular students on academic scholarships may, in most cases, transfer at will.

But, under rules currently on the books, an athlete on scholarship seeking to transfer must get permission to contact other schools when choosing to transfer. A school recruiting a transfer player also must ask the current school for permission to recruit the player.

Without permission from the original school, the athlete can be blocked from getting financial aid from another school for a year.

Some coaches have taken this punitive power to remarkably spiteful lengths, such as Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State telling a player he was prohibited from going to any of nearly 40 schools. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder sought to enforce a list of 35 schools before succumbing to public pressure.

They did it, in part, because they could. And, have for nearly a half century.

Come Oct. 15 an athlete can notify the school’s compliance department of an intention to transfer and the school is required to post the notice on an NCAA website within two business days. Interested schools can then contact the player.

Additionally, the NCAA said, “tampering with a current (athlete) at another school” is classified as a level 2 violation and “considered a significant breach of conduct.”

But while undergraduate players in many of the so-called “money” sports (football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and hockey) will be free to choose their next stop they will still be subject to sitting out a year of competition under most circumstances. That’s something not required of participants in other sports.

A spokesman for the Mountain West, where the University of Hawaii competes in football, said, “There is a requirement for student-athletes to sit out for one year, but there is no prohibition or block (when transferring within the conference).”

The Big West Conference, where most of UH’s teams compete, has a similar posture.

The NCAA, in a so-called “redshirt rule,” also announced Division I football players can participate in up to four games in a season without using a season of competition. Players have five years in which to play four seasons.

Some league officials say they believe the new rules will balance out the traffic among the Power Five and mid-major conferences between players seeking to test themselves at marquee schools and those with limited playing time looking for more opportunity at the mid-majors.

Whether the NCAA has taken a major stride forward — or just opened a new can of worms — remains to be seen.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.