Ferd Lewis: Transfers keeping watch for NCAA ruling

For University of Hawaii basketball recruit Noel Coleman, former Alabama quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa and several hundred of their peers, Wednesday is a day to keep an eye on.

It is a day that could have a lot to say about whether they play, COVID-19 and the NCAA willing, in the 2020-21 school year.

That’s when the NCAA Division I Council is scheduled to take up the hot-button issue of the so-called one-time transfer proposal.

Currently, NCAA athletes in all but five sports — football, baseball, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey — are allowed to transfer schools without penalty.

But athletes in those five sports must sit out a season of competition unless they are graduate transfers or receive a waiver from the school they are leaving.

Basically, since those are deemed revenue sports in many athletic departments, the schools feel like they have a particular investment in athletes who play those sports and seek to hold onto them as if they are chattel.

It is a point where the whole student-athlete facade is exposed since regular students on campus and, indeed, most other athletes are free to transfer as they choose.

And, a study by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows that 37.2% of college students transfer at least once within six years.

Additionally, it is not like the NCAA’s rules have stopped or even slowed the flow of athletes. This year more than 1,000 entered the NCAA’s transfer portal.

“The current system is unsustainable. Working group members believe it’s time to bring our transfer rules more in line with today’s college landscape,” said Jon Steinbrecher, commissioner of the Mid-American Conference and chairman of the NCAA working group earlier this year. “This concept provides a uniform approach that is understandable, predictable and objective. Most importantly, it benefits students.”

Well, at least it will if it passes.

The issue looked to have smooth sailing until last month when the NCAA Board of Directors recommended against the proposal.

This week the Division I Council has choices: It can pass the one-time transfer rule, it can follow the board’s recommendation and vote it down or defer the issue until January.

Passage on Wednesday would mean that the rule change becomes effective for the 2020-21 school year. That would allow Coleman, who played at the University of San Diego, to be eligible immediately at UH. It would also permit Tagovailoa, who played at Kapolei High for two years before his family moved to Alabama, to be immediately eligible at Maryland after leaving the Crimson Tide. Otherwise, without waivers both would sit.

Opponents of the measure cite the problems it creates for coaches in recruiting and filling and holding onto rosters. But the same coaches and, indeed, the athletic administrators and school presidents, may change schools and pursue greener pastures without NCAA penalty as often as they like. And many have.

The fear, some say, is that amid the pandemic would make it easier for players to leave schools that might not compete this year or have limited schedules.

Of course, coaches or administrators could do the same thing.

And what is good enough for them should also be good for the players.

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