Athletics Veritas is a weekly series aimed at helping higher education executives, faculty, and other stakeholders stay tuned in on trending national issues impacting college athletics, especially NCAA Division I. Athletics Veritas is created by senior DI athletic administrators around the nation.
Winds of Change: The Door to Division I’s One-Time Transfer Exception for All Sports is Starting to Look Ajar
Coming out of its winter meetings last week, the Atlantic Coast Conference made headlines when it announced:
"The ACC discussed the transfer environment and unanimously concluded that as a matter of principle we support a one-time transfer opportunity for all student-athletes, regardless of sport.”
Representatives from the Big Ten Conference have also been public about their support for aligning all sports with the one-time transfer exception and encouraging other conferences to be more transparent about their position on the topic.
No doubt these are newsworthy press releases and sound bites, but the transfer flexibility headlines have arrived to the party before any legislative changes to the transfer rules have stepped out of their car.
To help our readership, let’s take a look at the baseline transfer rule to give context to the sea change that would occur if the Division I’s one-time transfer exception became available to all sports.
For many decades, the baseline rule in Division I regarding transfers is that a student-athlete transferring from one four-year school to another four-year school has to serve a year in academic residence before being eligible to compete at the second institution.
Specifically, and to this day, Division I Bylaw 14.5.5.1 (General Rule) states:
“A transfer student from a four-year institution shall not be eligible for intercollegiate competition at a member institution until the student has fulfilled a residence requirement of one full academic year (two full semesters or three full quarters) at the certifying institution.”
So, as of February 2020, a Division I student-athlete can transfer at any time, but whether you can compete for the next school right away depends on a few variables, including which sport you play. The NCAA has gone on record time and again through educational outreach to confirm it does NOT restrict a student-athlete’s ability to transfer from one school to another. Rather, NCAA Division I rules only restrict the student-athlete’s ability to compete at the next school.
It is also worth noting that the one-time transfer exception is not the only transfer exception on the books. There are a few nuanced Division I transfer exceptions that are tailored to narrower extenuating scenarios for which the Division I membership is comfortable automatically granting relief from standard application of transfer rules.
Two examples of niche NCAA legislated transfer exceptions include permitting student-athletes who transfer from their first school after it drops the sport to play immediately at another institution that sponsors the same sport and, second, permitting a student-athlete that transfers from another four-year school after not participating for a consecutive two-year period to play immediately at their next school.
But the headline grabber in 2020 is Division I's “one-time transfer exception.”
Let’s take a closer look. Here’s the NCAA Division I one-time transfer exception bylaw in full with its four conditions.
NCAA Division I Bylaw 14.5.5.2.10 (One-Time Transfer Exception) The student transfers to the certifying institution from another four-year collegiate institution, and all of the following conditions are met (for graduate students, see Bylaw 14.6.1):
The student is a participant in a sport other than baseball, basketball, bowl subdivision football or men's ice hockey at the institution to which the student is transferring. A participant in championship subdivision football at the institution to which the student is transferring may use this exception only if the participant transferred to the certifying institution from an institution that sponsors bowl subdivision football and has two or more seasons of competition remaining in football or the participant transfers from a Football Championship Subdivision institution that offers athletically related financial aid in football to a Football Championship Subdivision institution that does not offer athletically related financial aid in football;
The student has not transferred previously from one four-year institution unless, in the previous transfer, the student-athlete received an exception per Bylaw 14.5.5.2.6 (discontinued/nonsponsored sport exception);
At the time of transfer to the certifying institution (see Bylaw 14.5.2), the student would have been academically eligible had he or she remained at the institution from which the student transferred, except that he or she is not required to have fulfilled the necessary percentage-of-degree requirements at the previous institution; and
If the student is transferring from an NCAA or NAIA member institution, the student's previous institution shall certify in writing that it has no objection to the student being granted an exception to the transfer-residence requirement. If an institution receives a written request for a release from a student-athlete, the institution shall grant or deny the request within seven business days. If the institution fails to respond to the student-athlete's written request within seven business days, the release shall be granted by default and the institution shall provide a written release to the student-athlete.
The criteria under the one-time transfer exception garnering the most scrutiny are the two clauses above in bold.
First, the one-time transfer exception is not available to all sports per subsection (a) -- namely, student-athletes in the most high-profile sports are not able to transfer and compete right away under this exception.
[NOTE: a separate “graduate transfer” exception does exist under Division I Bylaw 14.6 that is available to student-athletes in all sports provided they have earned an undergraduate degree and meet other criteria that mirrors the one-time transfer exception other than the restriction on certain sports.]
Subsection (d) of the one-time transfer exception is a notable condition here because the student-athlete’s first school could still object to the student-athlete using the one-time transfer exception despite meeting all other criteria. This subsection is often informally referred to as the “transfer release.” This provision within the one-time transfer exception gives the first school and athletics department a gatekeeping veto-power as to where an outbound student-athlete could compete next. Some Division I institutions might not object to a student-athlete transferring to all schools under the sun, but an institution might restrict, for example, an outbound student-athlete from transferring to schools on their team’s future schedule.
Since there has not been any legislative change to extend the one-time transfer exception to men’s and women’s basketball, football, men’s ice hockey, and baseball, the next best avenue in the short term for potential legislative relief for a student-athlete in one of these sports is to have his or her new institution file a waiver with the NCAA national office. The waiver is the mechanism to request legislative relief from the normal application of the academic year in residence requirement normally in play for transfers in these sports.
As the waiver process has received scrutiny for perceived uneven outcomes in recent years, it is worth emphasizing that each student-athlete’s circumstances are distinct and decided on their own merits. Further, privacy laws (e.g., FERPA) ensure that key protected details underlying a waiver decision are not known to the general public where a side-by-side, public assessment of the particular circumstances underlying NCAA transfer waivers could thearetically be attempted.
The NCAA's transfer waiver process that is generating perceived inequitable outcomes has drawn the ire of head coaches and administrators. Many times cases involve varying levels of extenuating medical, family, financial, or other personal circumstances; consequently, it becomes quite tricky to compare one student-athlete’s extenuating medical circumstances or a student-athlete’s extenuating financial circumstances against static criteria when everyone is striving for consistent and fair waiver decisions.
All is not lost. The Division I Transfer Working Group (TWG) is endeavoring to bridge the current transfer rules and exceptions on behalf of the Division I membership to the new climate around transfers. The TWG is focusing on potential changes to the NCAA transfer waiver criteria. The TWG is looking to thread the transfer needle toward a potentially more flexible standard that supports student-athletes, in any sport, toward an opportunity to compete immediately at a second school.
The TWG has been in place for a few years now and its current focus may be its most impactful: creating a simpler set of NCAA waiver criteria that sets a course for a transfer's immediate competition eligibility regardless of sport.
Specifically, the TWG at this time is seeking feedback from the Division I membership on their concept to modify NCAA transfer waiver criteria to permit student-athletes in any sport to compete at a second Division I institution via an approved waiver if the student-athlete:
Receives a transfer release from their previous school;
Leaves their previous school academically eligible;
Maintains their academic progress at the new school; and
Leaves under no disciplinary suspension.
This proposed waiver criteria addresses the current transfer restrictions on certain sports and takes out the qualitative assessment often inherent to waivers whereby the NCAA national office staff is asked to assess personal, financial, medical, or other extenuating circumstances of varying merit. Amending the transfer waiver criteria is seen as the near term solution whereas a legislative change to the transfer rule itself would be next on the to-do list.
This proposal from the TWG would certainly be considered a step toward student-athlete friendly deregulation. This recommendation, though, would still afford the first institution the ability to object to the transfer (aka—not granting a “transfer release”). The transfer release component to the transfer rule machinery may be the next major headline as some Division I head coaches in the high profile sports may not see eye-to-eye with their presidents and/or athletic directors who support this movement toward transfer deregulation. Some coaches worry about the challenges and unintended consequences an unfettered “free agency” transfer model could present.
For now, we hope this summary informs our readership on two key NCAA transfer rules as the transfer policy tornado continues to twist through the land.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
