In the past few months, the stringent restrictions that coaches and schools have placed on players seeking to transfer have ignited a wave of negative reaction that may ultimately change the way the issue is handled.
From Tennessee to Wisconsin to Maryland, football and basketball players have challenged restrictions -- dictating when and where they may transfer -- which eventually compelled schools to back off because of public backlash.
In an ideal world, coaches would have no influence on a player seeking to transfer. Georgia football coach Mark Richt has an open-door policy which allows UGA transfers to go anywhere, including SEC rivals and future opponents.
“First of all, I think life is too short,” Richt said.. “I want every young man to have a successful time in his four- or five-year window to be able to go to college. So I don’t want to impede a guy from realizing his goals and his dreams, wherever it is.
“I want our guys to stay [at Georgia] and sometimes when they do choose to leave, I still like the kid and I still want the kid to have success. If he thinks he will have success at a school you compete against, then so be it.”
Other coaches don’t see it the same way.
- At Tennessee, football coach Derek Dooley initially placed severe restrictions on wide receiver DeAnthony Arnett when he sought to leave UT,, saying he would only allow him to attendMAC schools in his home state of Michigan. Arnett said he wanted to play closer to home because of his father's health problems and pleaded his case on Twitter. After a PR beating, Dooley eased up on his stance and permitted Arnett to go to Michigan State.
- At Wisconsin, basketball coach Bo Ryan blocked redshirt freshman forward Jarrod Uthoff from transferring to other Big Ten schools,, which is common practice. But Ryan also placed a restriction on 15 other schools, including the entire ACC, because of possible future matchups against Wisconsin., Ryan remained defiant about the issue for four days but eventually changed his mind, leaving only Big Ten schools on the blocked list.
- At Maryland, football coach Randy Edsall has had nearly two dozen players leave the program in the last 14 months. In February, three players were granted releases as long as they didn't transfer to another ACC school, future non-conference opponents such as Temple and William & Mary, or Vanderbilt, which is not on Maryland's schedule but is coached by former Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin. Edsall became a punching bag for the local and national media, a Washington Post columnist calling him a modern-day "Captain Queeg." Edsall eventually lifted all restrictions for the trio but filed a tampering complaint against Vanderbilt.
Such publicity has opened up conversation on a darker side of college athletics and even NCAA president Mark Emmert had said transfer rules need to be reviewed to make sure they are fair to student-athletes. Currently, coaches seeking to block a player from transferring can decline to release him from his scholarship, meaning the player is bound to that school for a year and then must sit out another season under NCAA transfer rules after he leaves.
Georgia Tech basketball coach Brian Gregory predicts some positives from the recent months.
“Sometimes you need a extreme case to bring light to the subject and that’s what happened at Wisconsin,” Gregory said. “In the end … I really think some good will come out of this.”
Georgia Tech has two basketball players in the process of leaving the program: guard Glen Rice Jr. and forward Nate Hicks. Gregory has a policy restricting transfers to other ACC schools along with rival Georgia.
“That’s kind of our blanket policy,” Gregory said. “If any kid comes up to me and says, ‘These are the schools,' and one is in the ACC, then I’ll explain the rule about ACC transfers. And that usually eliminates the scenario immediately because no kid wants to sit out two years and lose a year of eligibility in the process.
“Probably with UGA, it’s the in-state rivalry thing and so forth. But I will be honest with you. If it ever got to a situation where a kid really wanted to go to a specific school, I wouldn’t fight it."
Meanwhile, Georgia Tech football coach Paul Johnson, couldn’t say for sure if he would block a transfer request to Georgia. Johnson’s said it would depends on circumstances surrounding the departure.
“I try to evaluate each one on merit," Johnson said. "If a kid wants to go home because his mother is sick, then that would be different than, ‘I want to go home because I don’t like the system.’ So each one, I look at individually and see how we fit.”
At Georgia, basketball coach Mark Fox has a similar policy to Richt's.
“I think as coaches, as long as there hasn’t been tampering, I don’t see why you should preclude a kid on going somewhere where they can pursue their lifelong goals,” Fox said. “I don’t think in those situations that there’s any reason to try to steer them away from any particular school.”
The court of public opinion doesn’t seem to have much sympathy for coaches, who can leave for another high-paying job on a moment’s notice and leave the team behind. Meanwhile, players have to sit out one season after transferring from another Division I school, unless they are granted a special waiver.
It’s not a topic that’s not going away. The NCAA has determined that 40 percent of Division I basketball players transfer at some point during their career.
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