The 1 Year Renewable Excuse
One of the more popular excuses we hear from those who defend oversigning is that football scholarships are 1 year renewable scholarships. However, the one thing most of those same people forget to mention or struggle to comprehend, and this is the very loophole in the NCAA by-laws that is being exploited, is that the deadline for scholarship renewal is July 1st, nearly 5 months after national signing day. This enables coaches to sign as many players as they can get away with in February and then gives them 5 months to figure out who they don't want to keep come July.
15.3.5.1 Institutional Obligation. The renewal of institutional financial aid based in any degree on athletics ability shall be made on or before July 1 prior to the academic year in which it is to be effective. The institution shall promptly notify in writing each student-athlete who received an award the previous academic year and who has eligibility remaining in the sport in which financial aid was awarded the previous academic year (under Bylaw 14.2) whether the grant has been renewed or not renewed for the ensuing academic year. Notification of financial aid renewals and non-renewals must come from the institution’s regular financial aid authority and not from the institution’s athletics department. (Revised: 1/10/95)
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The NCAA does provide for the opportunity to have a hearing when financial aid is not being renewed, and it does stipulate that the university athletics department is not the one conducting the hearing, however, are we really supposed to believe that the financial aid department is going to override a coach's decision to not renew a football scholarship? Furthermore, the player has to request a hearing, one is not automatically held to review every non-renewal. Lastly, and most importantly, in most cases when a scholarship is not being renewed it is because a player is going to transfer. Players need all they help they can get in finding a new home - are they really going to fight the decision of not being renewed and at the same time work with the current coach to find a new school? "Oh, so you want to have a hearing on your non-renewal, sure no problem, while you call the financial aid department to schedule your hearing we'll be on the phone with all of our coaching buddies and advise them that you are not worth a scholarship." We're not saying that we know that happens, we're just saying it wouldn't surprise us if it did.
15.3.2.4 Hearing Opportunity. The institution’s regular financial aid authority shall notify the student-athlete in writing of the opportunity for a hearing when institutional financial aid based in any degree on athletics ability is to be reduced or canceled during the period of the award, or is reduced or not renewed for the following academic year. The institution shall have established reasonable procedures for promptly hearing such a request and shall not delegate the responsibility for conducting the hearing to the university’s athletics department or its faculty athletics committee. The written notification of the opportunity for a hearing shall include a copy of the institution’s established policies and procedures for conducting the required hearing, including the deadline by which a student-athlete must request such a hearing. (Revised: 1/9/06 effective 8/1/06, 4/3/07, 4/23/08)
The bottom line here for us is that anyone who argues that there is nothing wrong with oversigning and then points to the NCAA by-laws for the 1 year renewable scholarships should be laughed at and dismissed. First of all, these are Universities with 4-year degree plans. That is what these coaches sell the players and their parents on, and any coach that is selling high school recruits on a 1-year scholarship offer should be reprimanded for professionalizing the sport.
We're not saying that once a kid gets a scholarship he should get to keep it for 4 years without ever lifting a finger and we don't believe in taking out the competitiveness between players on the team, but we believe that you can still have guys competing for playing time on a normal, non-oversigned roster and we believe that the really good coaches can get maximum effort out of players without having to threaten to take away their scholarships.
In our opinion, pointing to the 1 year renewable scholarship by-law is a complete joke on par with comparing how athletic scholarships are managed to how academic scholarships are managed, which is something else we have grown tired of hearing about. Most academic scholarships come with clearly written requirements to keep the scholarship and we challenge anyone to show us an academic scholarship that says the recipient can only keep the scholarship as long as there isn't a new high school student who is smarter or who scored higher on a test, which is basically what is happening with the athletic scholarships and coaches that oversign "sure you can have this scholarship, but if there is a guy that comes along that can run the 40 faster we're going to have to ask you to leave so that we can take him." Most if not all academic scholarships are clearly defined on the front end by people who do not stand to gain anything monetarily from the success or failure of those on scholarship. With athletic scholarhips, ultimately the person deciding who gets a scholarship and who does is someone who stand to gain a lot of money.
The letter of intent and subsequent scholarship should be a two way commitment for 4 years with very clear, very uniformed baseline requirements to keep the scholarship. Determining who should get those kind of scholarships well, isn't that what we pay coaches MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to do? These guys are being paid millions of dollars and they are the highest paid employee of every university, shouldn't they be capable of determine which high school recruits are worthy of receiving a 4 year scholarship and then carrying the responsibility of developing those guys over the course of 4 years, making sure they graduate, and prepare them for life? We don't think that is asking too much for what these guys make--we need to point out that there are many coaches that are already doing this and they should be commended.
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May 28th, 2010 - 11:26
“We’re not saying that once a kid gets a scholarship he should get to keep it for 4 years without ever lifting a finger” – It certainly seems that you are. What course will a coach have without the threat of a loss of scholarship?
Thanks for addressing the comparison to academic scholarships, though you don’t point out that there is not a maximum amout of these that may be awarded. I promise that this wouldn’t be the problem if there weren’t a cap at 85. If you want to wag your finger at something that is costing atheletes their renewed scholarships it is that. But we must be fair so we can’t let the wealthy schools have an advantage over the little poor ones (something I don’t really have a problem with).
Why is this practice so unfair? I know we are slowly creeping toward a socialistic society, but are we that far removed from a capitalist mindset that we feel a person is mandated a four-year college education (free of charge) because he played high school football pretty well? I don’t know about you, but I worked full-time and paid for six years of college myself so that I could become what I am. I would have loved for someone to have paid my way, even if it was for “only” a couple of years. These kids (and our society it would seem) need to learn that everything in this life is not handed to you for no reason, and that – yes – you may be supplanted if someone better than you comes along. I know that is the case for me at my job. If I can’t get the job done, someone will come along who will.
May 28th, 2010 - 11:51
Excellent point. Of course you are too scared to allow my counter-arguments on your website. That’s cool. I will simply make sure I get my side of the issue out there regardless of what it takes. I hope you have an endless amount of time to devote to this Quixotic thing, because whatever time I need to take it down a peg or five, I will gladly find.
BTW, I love how you take the same shout down approach to good counter-arguments that you so righteously try to belittle when it happens to you. You are one of the biggest hypocrites I have ever encountered.
May 28th, 2010 - 13:14
So basically you are going to go to every website talking about oversigning and post this (like you did at thewizofodds.com):
Looks pretty desperate. I guess we are supposed to follow behind you and post something like this on every website talking about oversigning where you commented:
“It is vital to know that while you read this guy’s comments that he is a die hard Alabama fan who lurks on Ohio State messages boards and attempts to piece together what he believes is the truth regarding the owner of oversigning.com and why the site exists. This man is obsessed with hating Ohio State and oversigning.com, so much so that he spends all his free time lurking on Ohio State message boards just looking for something to expose in an effort to support his conspiracy theory as to why oversigning.com exists. However legitimate his arguments might be, this man’s comments must be seen through the prism of his own prejudice, which is that Ohio State fans are full of jealous and hatred for Alabama and are on a mission to destroy them, which is overpowering any kind of objectivity he might otherwise have on the topic of oversigning. You can’t read his comments if you know the truth that he lurks on Ohio State messages boards and send threatening emails to the owner of oversigning.com, and not see his comments for anything other than the ramblings of a mad man.”
Can we move on now and address oversigning.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:42
When you can’t win on the merits of your arguement, attack the person who doesn’t agree with you. Something you have been doing for years CrimsonTider.
May 28th, 2010 - 12:20
“We’re not saying that we know that happens, we’re just saying it wouldn’t surprise us if it did.” And we’re not saying that you are twisting the numbers to fit your arguments, or that you have some personal axe to grind, we’re just saying it wouldn’t surprise us if you did
May 28th, 2010 - 13:09
Two questions for SoccerMike, deepsthboy, and others:
1) Would your opinion of oversigning change if YOUR son was forced to transfer or give up his scholarship from his school while getting good grades and competing to the best of his ability on the football field?
2) While in the living room of a prospective prospect do you believe Saban say the scholarship offer is renewable on a yearly basis contingent on in-game performance?
May 28th, 2010 - 13:52
1) No. If my son had received three years of a free education at Alabama but had never seen the field except at homecoming after the first team had secured a 30 point win, I would understand. I would be grateful of the opportunity, but sad that it didn’t work out. The alternative is to be a parent like Craig James, who conspires to have the coach fired.
BTW, many of these kids wouldn’t get a scholarship in the first place if Saban and others feared they wouldn’t have room for everyone they wanted next year. In that light, which policy is better?
2)I don’t know about the one-year issue, but I have heard reports that he tells them that they may have to grey-shirt if there isn’t room. I have no reason to assume that Saban, or anybody else misrepresents the way their program operates. Do you?
May 29th, 2010 - 10:40
If these two things were actually happening than yes, but we have not seen any of that, so at this point it is all specualtion. But I am also a realist and not some naive fan or parent. I understand that CFB has become a business which means the landscape has changed on what is expected and what happens. Now do I have concerns with CFB becoming a business, that is a different issue all on its own.
I have not yet seen a player forced to transfer that was in good academic standing and had not had any off the field issues.
And no one knows what Saban has told there recruits while recruiting them.
May 28th, 2010 - 13:19
That’s a good start, Joshua. If you had allowed my comments to post all along, perhaps neither of us would have had to resort to this. Now can we just allow this to be a debate and not just a one-sided tirade on your part? You do realize that there are two sides, correct?
May 28th, 2010 - 13:23
The debate ended when you realized that oversigning is real and your only option left was to make this personal. We’re not the ones sending threatening emails.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:44
Josh,
Pay zero attention to deepsthboy. He is obsessed with Ohio State and it got so bad he got booted from Bleacher Report.
May 28th, 2010 - 14:11
Lots of things are “real”. I live in an HOA-controlled subdivision. Let’s say I didn’t like one of my neighbors and wanted him to move out, so I started documenting every last little thing about his house and lot that were non-compliant with our SD’s covenants. But I wasn’t man enough to identify myself to the HOA board. Instead I just slipped anonymous notes in the mailboxes of all the board members, fully documenting all of the rule-breaking–REAL rulebreaking–that my hated neighbor was engaged in. SO now this neighbor is getting notice after notice that he is out of compliance, but the issues are things like a few weeds in his flower beds, chipped paint on his garage door–nothing major. But I make the point to my HOA board that this neighbor MUST be forced to comply with ALL of the HOA rules, lest the rest of us suffer untold loss of value in our own homes.
All of this is “real”, but is it really legitimate. I am using REAL issues to try and drive out my neighbor. Nothing wrong with that, right?
May 28th, 2010 - 15:39
In the end, if the HOA determines that guy is in the wrong and makes him comply, your neighbors will probably thank you for saving the value of their homes. Covenants are there to protect the value of the homes, and regardless of how stupid they might be when you live in an managed property, governed by an HOA, you sign up and agree to follow the covenants. Just because another resident doesn’t stand up at the board meeting and publicly announce that another one is breaking the covenants doesn’t mean the covenants weren’t broken.
May 28th, 2010 - 16:00
Don’t know what I can say to that, Joshua, other than it sounds like it’s a good thing you don’t live in my neighborhood, because you sound like the kind of guy who would make a big deal over chipped paint on the garage door. It is people like this that are why a huge number of people that move into HOA-restricted subdivisions later regret it, because someone goes all Al Gore and decides his neighbor is responsible for global warming.
May 28th, 2010 - 14:25
And as for what I would do if my son had to give up his scholarship?
My son is in the 8th grade (about to finish) and has played football the past two years and will be playing for his new HS this fall. One thing I have stressed with him since he first started playing is that:
1) The best players play
2) The best players also tend to be the ones that work the hardest–funny how that works
So, you get out of life what you put in. Easy lesson. If you put your best in and someone else beats you out anyway, well what else could you do?
So my son goes to D-1 college and is told his schollie isn’t being renewed. I ask one question. Did you do your absolute best? If the answer is yes, then there’s not much else to say.
As far as the one-year issue goes, you would have to be living under a rock not to know the ins and outs of that issue if your child is going to college on athletic scholarship. Not much more to be said than that. Learn about the details of your life and those of your children and nothing will sneak up on you like that.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:31
OMG. What happened you finally got the boot from BR? You should mix up your screen names. It makes you look less pathetic .
May 28th, 2010 - 14:57
Alright, so I think I read through the entire site on Tuesday (yes, every single post) and had found the link through Bob Condotta at the Seattle Times (seriously one of the best beat writers out there); he had linked to Wiz of Odds and voila, here I am.
Anyway, I really, really like your site. I would love it if you would focus more on the Pac-10 though. Not sure what you know, but essentially we have two halves of a conference; Washington, Cal, Stanford, UCLA, and USC, then Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona, and Arizona State. The first five do really, really well in both academics and athletics. The second five are pretty average across the board. Whoregon hasn’t won a Rosebowl in 93 years? That doesn’t count as being good. And they’re DEFINITELY not good in academics. Anyway, Pac-10 basically prides itself on both academics and athletics and is kind of a holier-than-thou conference except for the second five schools kind of sucking but needing them because a five team conference isn’t going to happen (granted, I would love to see a 6 team that includes the University of British Columbia as Washington’s travel partner).
Aside from all of that, I think your site is amazing and I think the practice over signing is abominable. I also think you need to look at Washington. As a Washington fan, I want to be able to take pride in my school and when we sign 30/31 players in one year, some of that pride diminishes. I get that Ty Willingham “left the cupboards bare” but we still got the same level of player that Mike Riley gets and does well with at Oregon State. Why shouldn’t Steve Sarkisian be able to win with those guys until he gets his own five star recruits?
Thanks,
Madison M.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:41
Great stuff, Madison. Thanks for sharing. We need people like you to help funnel information about other schools and other sports that are affected by oversigning. If you feel strongly enough about this and want to do some investigating on PAC10 schools specifically, we’ll be glad to share what you report back and help bring it to light.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:00
Joshua, you’re right. Oversigning is real. It’s so real that it’s part of the rules of NCAA football. It’s so real that after years of sticking to the “spirit” of the rules, the Big Integer decided to make oversigning legal in that league several years ago. The only reason you have an issue with it is because your team is losing, and you’ll stoop to ANYTHING to “level the playing field”.
Hundreds of kids are affected by oversigning every year, but with those hundreds of names to contact, you’ve been unable to find more than a handful that have a problem with their situation. Could you please give it a rest and get on with your life?
May 28th, 2010 - 15:37
If people like you didn’t keep responding, the web site would shut down due to lack of interest. His team is my team and it isn’t losing and in most polls is right behind ‘Bama having acheived that without oversigning. Our coach also knows that something doesn’t have to be against the rules for it to be wrong.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:49
In other words, lalala I can’t hear you you’re just jealous.
To paraphrase Brian Cook of MGoBlog, the issue isn’t that oversigning is happening and people don’t know about it, it’s that the fans of teams who are oversigning don’t care whether it’s right or wrong.
May 28th, 2010 - 15:53
My old buddy buckeyeXB.
Are you seriously beating your chest over a PRE-SEASON ranking? How exactly is that an achievement? As a Bama fan, I was much happier to start where we did in ’08 and even ’09 because it meant we didn’t have the targets on our backs that we will this year. Six of our opponents will be coming off bye weeks when we play them.
Regardless, a pre-season ranking is meaningless. In the past two years, the Buckeyes lost in weeks 3 and 2, respectively, sending you plummeting. Now this season you have the ‘Canes in Week 2. We shall see.
See you over at sportingnews.com, buddy.
May 29th, 2010 - 08:38
LOL Plummeting?? All the way to #5? In case you missed it, the ‘Canes had no answer for the big, slow,plodding Wisconsin. How do you think Harris is going to do against a better defense? The ‘Canes D created holes for John Clay to run thru big enough for a Mack truck. Yes, we shall certainly see.
May 29th, 2010 - 08:58
Yes, XB, that final score of 20-14 was indicative of one serious butt-kicking.
In ’08 you went from 5 to 13 after the USC walloping, and you should have dropped further than that. Last year, you “only” dropped from 11 to 13, so where you get this “all the way to #5″ BS is beyond me.
I have no idea what is going to happen in the OSU-Miami game this year, but SN has the ‘Canes ranked #4 pre-season, and of course we know from your prior post that this is a major “achievement”. The SN poll means as much as any other one that is out so far, including the BuckeyeXB poll.
May 29th, 2010 - 20:13
Similar to this oversigning issue, if you dig deeper and actually watched the game (not just regurgitate a final score you just looked up) you would know Wisc dominated the entire game.
May 30th, 2010 - 07:31
I watched most of the OSU-Wisconsin game last fall. OSU won that game. They did virtually nothing on offense, however. They had 8 first downs and 184 yards of total offense, yet they won the game 31-13. LSU, IMO, fairly dominated the Buckeyes in the 2007 NCG, but many OSU fans point out that OSU outgained the Tigers and had a fluky non-blocked punt along with several calls that went against them. Regardless, I would say LSU dominated that game. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. You can rack up all the offense in the world, but if you don’t score in football it doesn’t mean diddly.
June 1st, 2010 - 11:02
Which of course has nothing to do with the Wisky-Miami game unless of course you want to further prove your pathetic obsession with tOSU.
May 30th, 2010 - 15:44
“The bottom line here for us is that anyone who argues that there is nothing wrong with oversigning and then points to the NCAA by-laws for the 1 year renewable scholarships should be laughed at and dismissed. ”
Yes, after all, they can’t be expected to follow the rules, can they?