Obliterate the System
We have reached new levels of crazy in the NCAA. Just when you think it can’t get any more backwards than it already is, poof. We are proven wrong again. I’m giving all of you a fair warning now, I am about to go nuclear on the state of college sports and this is going to be long. Take some reading breaks, make some coffee, do whatever you need to do to get through this. But in order to get my point across here I need to explain how we got here, where we are, and somehow where we go from here. So let’s break it all down, and I mean ALL of it.
Review
Alright, by now I think everyone is/should be pretty familiar with NIL and the transfer portal. But we’ll do a quick recap. A few years ago, the Supreme Court said it said it wasn’t right that college athletes were unable to profit from their name, image, and likeness - which is now called NIL. For example they weren’t getting paid from jersey sales, being in the college sport video games, and of course they weren’t getting paid to play. The whole “student athlete” concept. Remember when that used to be a thing? It was a funny joke.
Now the transfer portal. Before if you wanted to transfer as a student athlete, you were allowed to but you had to sit out a year. Then the NCAA gave everybody a freebee and allowed one year where you could transfer and play right away. But if you transferred twice, then there was supposed to be a mandatory year where you didn’t play at all. It doesn’t appear that is always being enforced and at times they are reviewed on a case by case basis. For a while, I was somewhat in favor of the portal since it seemed like guys were able to find opportunities, make an impact, get drafted, all that fun stuff. But after what recently transpired, I can’t support it anymore.
What is Going Wrong?
Well, how much time you got? If you see that line you know it’s about to go down. I suggest buckling up for this one folks. The portal for basketball has opened up and we are in the middle of the tournament. At first, north of 750 players had initially entered the portal. At last check we are now at more than 1700 on the men’s side and more than 1100 on the women’s side. There is at least one player who has opted to leave his current team in the middle of March Madness and look for a new opportunity. That would be the son of Scottie Pippin, Justin Pippin, who has not seen much time at all at Michigan. For football, the portal opens during he college football playoff forcing players on postseason bound teams to make a nearly impossible decision to stay or leave.
You now have players of all sports who are now two, three, or four time transfer students. As soon as they get benched, their coach leaves, or some miniscule thing goes wrong, players are bailing on their teammates and the commitment they made to the school. This is impacting the landscape so much that the NCAA has decided to eliminate the letter of intent for soon to be graduating seniors, as more than ever they are chasing the money. And that’s not all. Not even close.
College football players in some cases are now getting paid more than NFL players which is ridiculous. Miami’s new quarterback Carson Beck who naturally transferred from Georgia has two sports cars, one of them being a Lamborghini. I only know that because one of them got stolen. Cry me a river, honestly. The Georgia football team all have expensive cars now and you may know this because every other day one of them is getting charged for reckless driving. On top of all of that, college football players are basically getting bribed to switch teams.
Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers was a offered a deal worth up to six million dollars to transfer and forgo the NFL draft. Ohio State star freshman receiver Jerimiah Smith was offered four million to transfer. Thankfully, they didn’t take the deals. We are now living in a time where college athletes are getting game checks. NFL QBs Brock Purdy and Will Levis who are still on their rookie deals are making are making roughly 760,000 while guys like Carson Beck are making upwards of four million. On what planet does this make any sense to anybody with half a brain?
NIL has become which rich booster can write a blank check with the most money to coax athletes in the portal and graduating high schoolers who don’t know any better. I mentioned this before, but the Nike CEO who is an alum of the University of Oregon has basically said that we will give the school unlimited money so the school can win at all costs. Schools in a lower tier conference don’t get that. You really think rich donors are lining up to help out the University of Buffalo? Northern Illinois? Holy Cross? Colgate? You get the idea.
This has now had an impact on my alma mater, American International College. We are DII for almost everything but the hockey team had competed at the DI level for years. Due to the changing landscape of the NCAA, the school made the decision to move back down to DII citing the lack of resources and talent to compete. The school a few years ago beat the number one overall seed in the NCAA tournament. There was some hope and optimism that maybe things were looking up. My heart breaks for everybody a part of that program and it sucks that this decision had to be made. But this is the reality we live in and I’m not going to lie, it hurt when I saw the news. I called a few of those games back in the day as the color analyst and it was a blast even though I had no idea what I was doing.
Hockey doesn’t get the same resources that football and basketball get in terms of NIL money. The same can be said for most of the smaller sports. During the Olympics, a US track and field athlete from Vanderbilt was begging for help on social media because while the football team (which has been mostly terrible lately) were getting all the money possible, she didn’t have money to pay her own rent. It took Flavor Flav, Serena Williams, and her husband getting involved to bring light to this issue. And as much as the smaller sports get forgotten, there was one instance that I wanted to bring up.
NiJaree Canady is a college softball player. She is the best pitcher and probably player in the country. She burst onto the scene as a freshman at Stanford during the women’s college world series. After her second season she entered the portal. Texas Tech offered her a six figure deal and reports came out about the school administration wining and dining her to get her to commit. I love college softball and I am a huge fan of Canady, but this should not be acceptable for any sport. It just feels so wrong on so many levels.
St. John’s basketball coach Rick Pitino said it best. He understands why the kids are taking the money. He also said we all would if we were good at what we did and had the chance to make more money. To that point, one of his players has the exact same idea. RJ Luis Jr was the Big East player of the year and maybe the best player for coach Pitino’s group this year. He is declaring for the NBA draft while maintaining his college eligibility, which you can do in basketball, but also entering the portal. I guess the great year he had wasn’t enough to make him want to stay.
Coaches
Coaches are finding it harder to recruit during these times and you can understand why. Ole Miss women’s basketball coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin who is affectionately called “Coach Yo” was on the phone with an agent who was representing some players. It’s unclear who they were and quite frankly it isn’t any of our business. But the agent said at one point the only thing the players they represented cared about was money. Coach Yo hung up on the guy after hearing that and I applaud her for doing so. She landed three big name transfers who clearly did not only care about NIL money and her group will be better for it.
There were some older coaches who saw the writing on the wall and knew it was time to get out of dodge. Legendary coaches like UNC’s Roy Williams and Alabama’s Nick Saban opted to retire citing the struggle that both NIL and the portal have created. I get why they left. Nothing left to prove and the climate is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Jim Larranaga, the head men’s basketball coach at Miami, retired abruptly in December citing being exhausted with what is going on. His team a year before made it to the final four, and eight of those players said they were leaving. He asked why and if something went wrong with him or the school and they said no, so he asked why they were all leaving. Do you want to take a wild guess on what they said? You guessed it, the freaking NIL money. The same reason why he retired out of the blue is the same reasons Virginia coach Tony Bennett gave.
“College athletics is not in a healthy spot. It’s not,” Bennett said. “And there needs to be change. It’s not going to go back. I think I was equipped to do the job here the old way — that’s who I am and that’s how it was.”
He was honest, you can’t ask for more than that. But he is also 100% right. It’s not just the luminaries of the coaching world either. Jeff Hafley was all in on trying to make Boston College a winner again and was willing to work through the dumpster fire of the NCAA, until he wasn’t. He left to take a lesser role, a defensive coordinator job in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers. As much as so many coaches are trying to tread water, others are part of the problem.
Lincoln Riley and and Brian Kelly set a dangerous president when they out of nowhere left Oklahoma and Notre Dame football head coaching jobs to chase lucrative deals with USC and LSU respectively. Now it’s a free for all and nobody is off the table or innocent. Kim Mulkey who I have so much respect for left Baylor for LSU and Kenny Brooks left Virginia Tech for Kentucky. Two women’s basketball coaches that you wouldn’t at all expect to leave. It’s not surprising on the men’s side and especially not shocking for it to happen with football. Deion Sanders left Jackson State for Colorado. Luke Fickell left Cincinnati for Wisconsin. Kalen DeBoer left Washington for Alabama. Jeff Brohm left Purdue for Louisville and left them (Purdue) in shambles.
Men’s basketball coaches were taking jobs when their teams were either recently eliminated from or still in the NCAA tournament. Think about that for just one second. NC State one year removed from a final four appearance fired Kevin Keatts and hired Will Wade while he was still on the sidelines for McNeese. Sean Miller coached Xavier to a first four win against Texas and as soon they get eliminated, he takes the job at Texas. Rich Pitino, Rick’s son, coached New Mexico State in the tournament and then took the Xavier job when they got bounced. The domino affect continued when Eric Olsen spurned San Diego State after they lost to take that same job at New Mexico.
You think I’m done? Oh not even close. You better get a flow chart if you aren’t keeping score already. This will only get more convoluted not less. Villanova fired Kyle Neptune after three years and after leading Maryland to their first Sweet 16 since 2016, Kevin Willard dips to take the Villanova job, creating yet another domino affect that I only just found about doing research for this article - Buzz Williams is leaving Texas A&M to take the Maryland gig. It’s not just the NCAA tournament either, moves were happening during the consolation tournament the NIT as well. Ross Hodge left North Texas to take the West Virginia job because Darian DeVries left West Virginia to take the Indiana head coaching job. Just to wrap this up before everybody’s head explodes and going back to Maryland for one second, the athletic director is also leaving to take the same job at SMU (Southern Methodist University) in Texas. Deep breath, exhale, and release.
Next Steps
So, what do we do? At this point we can’t stop this from happening. There is a lot of trepidation about the future now that Pandora’s box is open and the world of college sports as we know it is forever changed. College teams now have general managers and assistant general managers, this is what it has come to. Andrew Luck for Stanford football and Michael Lombardi for UNC. Even Adrian Wojnarowski, a former member of the media, was the one of the first to make waves as the GM for St. Bonaventure University men’s basketball team. Some programs have tabbed current players as assistant GMs like Steph Curry for Davidson basketball and most recently Trae Young for Oklahoma basketball. Young is also making a one million dollar donation to the program because of course he is. We must find a way to turn this crazy system into something that makes more sense, which can’t be done without everyone involved starting at the top.
Whose at the top of the NCAA? That would be former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker who took the role after his tenure as governor ended. Baker is a smart man and he is a big reason why the pandemic in the state was handled so well. He did a good job running Massachusetts with humility, grace, empathy, and logic. With that being said, I have absolutely no idea what the hell he is doing or what he thinks he’s doing, but it isn’t good. It’s only getting worse too. These are a few things that should happen to try to somewhat fix this.
Players and coaches need to be signed to contracts at this juncture. Like the pros, make it a three or year four year format with a “club option” as they call it for extra time if both parties are open to it. If you want to leave, there will be a hefty buy out that the player/coach will have to pay, or the new school will have to do it.
The contracts need clauses for termination. Hey Georgia, you may want to listen to this idea seeing how your kids love to play Speed Racer. If you are charged with any kind of crime or have conduct detrimental to the team, you get kicked to the curb and when that happens, you get nothing you lose good day sir or madam.
The NCAA has the ability to sanction schools that break the rules by reducing the amounts of scholarships they can give out, banning them from the postseason, and obviously a few others. NIL spending and transfer portal pickups need to be included into that, and there should be a cap on this already. Why there isn’t is beyond me.
Mainly for football, but if you opt out of bowl games or if other players opt out of games or seasons as a whole, you have to give all of the money back. If you don’t, it is considered a breach of contract or something of that nature.
Baker was calling on congress to offer some type of guidelines and limitations. No, you have to do it. This is the job you wanted. Figure it out. If people don’t like what you come with, too bad for them.
I can’t believe I am saying this, but make it clear to the athletes that you have to go to class or they do not play. Can we try to maintain some semblance of student athlete models and regulations? Make that part of the contract with the money aspect. And let’s get rid of non-college age people being permitted to play as 26 year old’s who played other sports, and let’s stop 30 year old Aussie Rules Football players from enrolling and serving as the teams punter or whatever they do.
Bring back the you must sit if you transfer rule and don’t sign any deals up front. Use the letter of intent as part of the contract and do not give them any money or NIL deals before that.
With the new conference alignments with teams going cross country in these new stupid media deals that the greedy schools are chasing, stagger the amount of times you do that basically meaning don’t do it two or three times in a row. Then after one of those road trips give the athletes time off to rest, recover, and let them get caught up on their work - make sure they are doing it. Hold the kids accountable to make sure they don’t fall behind and burn out, and check on them! We don’t need another Lauren Betts situation where she had to be hospitalized for her mental health, or a Hailey Van Lith situation where she was heavily medicated just to get through the day and play a game. They are human beings so let’s treat them as such. Shea Ralph, the women’s basketball coach at Vanderbilt said if the mentality is win at all costs then we’re not doing this for the right reasons and she is right. She is embracing mentoring and educating because that’s more important than a stupid game where only one percent of people, if that, are even going to have a chance to play professionally.
Finally, if we are letting the DI players cash in, we need to offer the same opportunities to the DIIs, DIIIs, and the service academies (who can’t benefit as government employees) an opportunity to do so. Fair is fair. Pro sports aren’t in most of their futures so if anything they need the money more.
Final Thoughts
We are passed ridiculous at this point. We are now bordering violations of moral and ethical codes and in some of those cases, we are already crossing lines. This is not college athletics anymore. This is now a group of the worst owners in sports. NCAA schools don’t care who gets hurt. They don’t care about the athletes wellbeing. If anybody questions them they just clutch their pearls in denial and say oh no, we haven’t done anything wrong. Not us. We would never.
These money counting good for nothing pieces of crap don’t see what they are doing is detrimental to everything college sports used to stand for, and I’ll go a step further saying most of them don’t care. The athletic directors and big name officials are getting the big bucks for their penthouses and mansions while those below them struggle to get funding for departments that actually do the real work, and the athletes suffer in the process. Nobody asked for this. Those who are trying to go about this the right away who are just trying to get a scholarship to try and help their struggling family didn’t ask to be a puppet of the NCAA, or the college they decided to commit to. These are the people that are now getting overshadowed and now suffering the most in return.
But now there is also a sense of entitlement with the athletes who are naturally gifted and get told how great they are. Look at my baby go they said, look how fast he runs or how strong they are. Why isn’t he or she playing? They are the best player on the team? This coach is stupid. Let’s get them out of there. No, let’s teach these guys how to handle adversity and the importance of hard work. Don’t quit because it’s hard. In the words of Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson, learn to handle hard better because it will never get easier. Tell your kids no, you aren’t going to transfer/bail on the commitment that you made. You stay, focus on classes, and if it all works out more power to you. But teaching them it’s okay to quit when the tables are turned against them is not the answer. Education is the answer and the priority of a student athlete.
The NCAA has lost the plot. The wellbeing of everybody involved needs to be back at the forefront. College kids shouldn’t be caught in the middle of a bidding war and be subject to being enticed to play at a school for money. But again, the people in charge are only thinking of themselves which can only lead to more corruption, toxicity, and overall problems. Hold the powers at be accountable. Limit the resources and pull they have. This cannot continue to be free agency every year with a no rules type of marshal law where it’s everybody for themselves like the Hunger Games. Because when somebody gets hurt or worse, there will be a lawsuit and blood on the hands of everybody involved. I’ve said before that in sports the wrong thing will be done more often than the right thing will ever be considered, and sadly I am right about this once again. We end by giving the final word on all of this to Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo and ESPNs Scott Van Pelt - click here.