I hate to rant, but …
When it comes to the hypocrisy of college football, I can’t help myself.
Coaches can leave when they want. Oh, some of them have buyouts in their contracts but those never hinder a coach from taking a job that pays them more money.
Players have no rights. They are on one-year contracts with the school and cannot pick up leave whenever they want. The NCAA talks about the care of the student-athletes, but in reality the players are simply pawns.
Recently, I was talking to a head coach who has a young player who has made noises about transferring.
“I won’t release him,” he said.
And then we have the case of Tennessee wide receiver DeAnthony Arnett, as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Arnett is a freshman who played in all 12 games for the Vols. He is from Saginaw, Mich., and his father is suffering from lung disease. He recently posted a picture of his dad with his shirt open showing tubes sticking out of his chest to prove that he’s not exaggerating things.
He wants to transfer. Tennessee coach Derek Dooley will release him but not to Michigan or Michigan State. He has told Arnett if he wants to leave, he can go play in the Mid-American Conference.
In an e-mail to the media, Arnett wrote, “Therefore as a student athlete I feel coach dooley is trying to hinder my success by not allowing me to compete at a bcs level! And he’s neglecting the fact that my father is severely ill.”
If he were a coach, Arnett could have transferred without sitting out a year and texted Dooley that he was leaving like Todd Graham did at Pittsburgh. But as a player, he must play by the archaic and unfair rules of college football.
It’s time the NCAA put an end to this and passed legislation that would allow players to transfer wherever they want without having to get a permission slip from their coach.
But that might give the impression the organization, its presidents and its members give a hoot about the players they use to climb ladders and make millions.
[…] The hypocrisy continues | Dooleys Desk […]
The player can transfer and pay his own way for a year. He’s not forbidden.
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Without these kinds of impediments, teams would continue to recruit players even after they had gone to other schools. IN fact, there would be an incentive to wait until the players had developed into good players.
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Do you want to see Brissett have a breakout season next year, then transfer to Alabama for his final two years? That would be the potential scenario if players had free transfer.
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If this is all about dad needing his son at home, then the kid needs to put football on the back burner to help out. He’s from Saginaw, he could go to Saginaw Valley State for a couple of years and live at home, then transfer to a big school after dad had recovered.
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How often would he get home if he’s an 1 1/2 hours away at Michigan or Mich State? Occasional weekends? No, this is NOT about the dad. This is about leaving UT and needing an excuse to play right away.
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We are on opposite ends of this argument, Pat