Subscribe to the NCSA BlogOversigning Disaster
July 2nd, 2009 - byWe’ve written about how recruits need to be aware of the massive oversigning of players that occurs today in college athletics. Oversigning helps college coaches, but can leave student-athletes out in the cold at the worst possible moment. A story is emerging from South Florida about an athletes who has been kicked to the curb right before camp.
Wesley Chapel center Kamran Joyer, who signed with USF in February, has asked for and been granted a release from his scholarship with the Bulls after uncertainty as to whether he’d be accepted academically, his father Jack said Monday afternoon.
USF’s coaches had anticipated some attrition from signing day, when 29 players signed with the Bulls, four over the NCAA limit for one class. Joyer is the sixth signee not expected to be in school this fall … Even without those six signees, USF is believed to be at the NCAA’s overall limit of 85 scholarships, unless other returning players do not stay with the program as expected.
Keep in mind that Joyer is NCAA eligible and the Bulls have shown no signs of intense academic scrutiny in the past (they have the nation’s worst APR). It would seem that he was cast off at the last second because he was the lowest rated incoming recruit, not due to his academic standing. The Sporting Blog has a harsh take on this story, particularly ESPN’s response.
Here’s where access turns you into a corporate drone: Brian Bennett, the author of that sentence, says it “appears to be the case” Joyer didn’t qualify academically when the article specifically says he did, and that this is an example of things “working themselves out.” Tell that to Joyer. Bennett follows this up with some stuff about how people want to “reduce” oversigning without giving Leavitt the full blast he deserves for this. The lack of reading comprehension and spine in that post is truly epic.
Whether South Florida was right or wrong isn’t my issue. My point is that potential recruits need to aware that situations like this happen all the time. Student-athletes need to go in to the recruiting process with their eyes wide open. They need to ask coaches the proper questions and have enough options so that they can make the right decision and avoid being dropped from a team for reasons they didn’t previously foresee.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
The truth is that many college coaches stretch, bend, circumvent, break and thus violate NCAA recruiting regulations in order to remain competitive in their efforts to keep their jobs. Prospects and their families are entering a high stakes contest and only the opposition knows the rules. Not recognizing this fact causes substantial pain for a lot of families.To level the playing field, prospects must learn the rules and be able to exploit them so they can find the right school, right program and right coach and to receive financial aid for their athletic ability.