AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2006 > May > 29
Monday, May 29, 2006
Gridiron grads? Yep.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Think about this one, Dawg fans.
D.J. Shockley, as you know, red-shirted as a freshman. After four years of playing behind David Greene, he was finally Georgia’s starting quarterback as a fifth-year senior in 2005. D.J. got his degree in Speech Communications in December of 2005.
But what if Shockley had gotten his undergraduate degree in May of 2005? And what if, in June, Shockley told coach Mark Richt that he wasn’t going to come back to Georgia. What if he told Richt that he was going to graduate school at Florida State and use his last year of eligibility to play for Bobby Bowden?
He couldn’t do that, you say.
You could say that, but you would be wrong.
A new piece of NCAA legislation, one that has been flying under the radar for about a month, will allow an athlete with a degree and remaining eligibility to do exactly that.
The NCAA Board of Directors voted for the measure in April and, from a sheer academic standpoint, it makes sense. If a student has an undergraduate degree and wants to go to a particular graduate school, should he be penalized and not allowed to participate in athletics if he has eligibility remaining?
If I’m D.J. Shockley and the Stanford law school admits me, shouldn’t I be able to use my last year of eligibility there?
Coaches, of course, see the potential for abuse because that’s the way they are wired. They can see developing a player for four years and suddenly, with a degree in hand, he becomes a free agent. A lot of grad schools are certainly going to be calling.
The concerned coaches already have a real life example.
Tyler Kreig, an offensive lineman at Duke, received his degree in Political Science earlier this month. He has enrolled in a graduate program at California, whose team just happened to lose three starters from its offensive line to the NFL Draft.
The American Football Coaches Association, CBS SportsLine reported, is putting together an effort to overturn the legislation.
I think they will lose.
One, this just isn’t going to happen that often. In today’s game there just won’t be that many fifth-year senior players who already have a degree.
Two, and this is the important one, the NCAA under president Myles Brand has made it clear that when it has a choice between what is best for the student-athlete and what is best for the institution, it will bend over backwards to try and side with the student-athlete.
So many of these rulings — most in fact — go against the athletes. This is one they can win. The coaches are just going to have to suck it up.
