By Ellen Rugeley
The NCAA’s rule regarding graduate transfers has recently come under fire as more student-athletes have been denied their transfer waiver requests.
The rule allows student-athletes to transfer to another school for their last year of eligibility without sitting out for a season. However, the rule also allows for the student-athletes former coach and or school to withhold permission for the student-athlete to engage in competition at their new school.
Todd O’Brien, a former basketball player at St. Joseph’s University, transferred to the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) as a graduate student and planned on playing basketball for UAB during his last year of eligibility. However, his former coach at St. Joseph’s, Phil Martelli, has refused to sign a release, thus making O’Brien ineligible to play while attending UAB.
O’Brien, an economics major at St. Joseph’s, said that he didn’t have the required courses to get into the school’s MBA program and as a result wanted to transfer schools for purely academic reasons. O’Brien is now in a public administration graduate program at UAB. “Anyone who knows me knows I want to get into real-estate development,” he told the media.
The NCAA denied O’Brien’s first appeal last fall, citing deference to the institution’s decision. O’Brien re-submitted his approval in early January in order to introduce into evidence his first semester grades and completed internship in his graduate course of study in an attempt to prove that he had transferred to UAB primarily for academic reasons, but the NCAA determined there was not enough new evidence to overturn its original decision.
Many critics have challenged St. Joseph’s decision to deny O’Brien’s transfer request. O’Brien wasn’t exactly a star player for the men’s basketball team. He averaged 1.0 points and 1.3 rebounds in 7.2 minutes last season. He also missed four games while the school investigated his potential role in a teammate’s theft of a computer laptop. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.
St. Joseph’s has given permission to at least five other players over the past three years to transfer, including some of the schools top players.
O’Brien wrote a letter in which he implies that there was no sound reason for the denial, except for spite. O’Brien’s lawyer, Donald Jackson, said in a recent interview, that they are considering suing Martelli and St. Joseph’s in Alabama court since the school has offered “no valid justification” for keeping O’Brien from playing.
St. Joseph’s has refused to comment on the issue, citing privacy laws and the school “considers the matter closed.”
This case has also led many to wonder why a player still needs permission from the school even if they have graduated.
In a similar case, another college has refused to provide a release to a student-athlete seeking a transfer.
Brock Berglund, a quarterback for the University of Kansas (KU), was on the roster when KU fired head coach Turner Gill and replaced him with Charlie Weis. Shortly after taking over, Weis secured two high-profile transfers to play quarterback: Dayne Crist, formerly of the University of Notre Dame, and Jake Heaps, formerly of Brigham Young University (BYU).
Upon being told that he wouldn’t be able to compete for starting quarterback, Berglund asked for permission to speak with other schools to explore his options, not officially transfer (doing so without KU’s permission is against NCAA rules). Berglund’s request was denied. Berglund was also advised that he would not be released from his scholarship, even though he had yet to ask for a release.
Berglund has since been dismissed from the team for missing a meeting. Berglund explained on 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City that if he stepped on campus for the new semester, it could delay his opportunity to play again if he transferred. Therefore, he informed KU that he would not be attending the mandatory team meeting on January 15. Berglund was not informed of his dismissal personally, instead he learned of the news via Twitter and Internet reports.
Despite dismissing him from the team, KU won’t release Berglund from his scholarship and allow him to transfer. Berglund has hired Vince Linden as his attorney and is appealing the decision.
KU called its decision to deny Berglund’s request a “teachable moment,” but hasn’t disclosed any further reasoning behind the decision.
Critic have pointed to the hypocrisy since KU will benefit from the fact that both Notre Dame and BYU provided Crist and Heaps with releases, yet will not grant one to Berglund. Proponents of the rule say it discourages students from choosing schools based on coaches. While the NCAA maintains that student-athletes choose a school, some student-athletes choose schools based on coaches.
On Monday Kansas announced that it had dismissed 6 players from the team, including backup quarterback Brock Berglund. On Tuesday Berglund told the Lawrence Journal-World that he found out about his dismissal on Twitter, along with the rest of the world.
Now we find out that while Berglund has been dismissed from the team by Charlie Weis, the new head coach in Lawrence isn’t making things easy for Berglund, as he is yet to release him from his scholarship.
