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Monday, April 28, 2008
How Bennett left
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Taylor Bennett was a stand-up guy with the media throughout his Georgia Tech career. No matter how bad things got on the field, Bennett would answer questions after the game. So it was out of character when he made himself unavailable for comment a few months ago when he chose to stop playing football for the Yellow Jackets.
This morning, he said there was a reason for his silence. He didn’t want to say anything that might affect his application for an NCAA waiver allowing him to play right away at his new school. If he didn’t get that waiver, his career would have been over, at least in Division I-A.
A couple of years ago, players who graduated could transfer and play right away with no need of a waiver, and a few did, most notably cornerback Ryan Smith, who transferred from Utah to Florida, Lon Kruger’s son Kevin, who joined his dad at UNLV. The NCAA changed that rule after only one year, but it left the door open just a crack. That was a big enough opening for Bennett, who successfully argued that he had a valid academic reason for transferring from Georgia Tech to Louisiana Tech, where he will enroll in a master’s degree program Georgia Tech does not offer.
The result is a strange compromise that reveals how difficult it is to draw up a rule that satisfies everybody. The player has to find an academic justification for the school he chooses, whether it’s his real motivation or not. (Not to say Bennett isn’t interested in Louisiana Tech’s master’s program. In fact, he says it’s a good fit with what he did as a Georgia Tech undergraduate and with what he wants to do after his football days end.)
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