Tech athletes in portal before Dec. 14 barred from first Alston award checks

The hottest topic in college football this week is the volume of players having their names entered into the NCAA transfer portal. New legislation adopted in August narrowed the time frame players could do so to a 45-day period right after bowl pairings are made and another period from May 1-15.

Hundreds of players had their names newly entered on Monday, the day the portal opened for this period.

Texas Tech players have a financial incentive to keep their names out of the portal before Dec. 14. The last day of fall-semester final examinations is Dec. 13, and Tech athletes whose names are in the portal on or before that date are disqualified from receiving financial awards under Tech's Strive Program, senior associate athletics director Jonathan Botros said.

Tech plans to pay its qualified athletes a baseline amount of $1,990 at the end of a semester for being academically eligible, on a path to graduate, in good standing on a team roster and not in the transfer portal. They can earn up to $1,000 more based on hitting grade-point average increments, performing five hours of community service and taking part in name, image and likeness education and personal and career development programs.

An athlete meeting every requirement can earn $2,990 in a semester, $5,980 in an academic year. That's the maximum amount established by the unanimous Supreme Court ruling in June 2021 in NCAA vs. Alston.

The ruling meant the NCAA can no longer prohibit schools from providing non-cash education-related benefits to athletes or from providing cash or cash-like awards to athletes for academic achievement in an annual amount up to $5,980. Previously, NCAA rules capped the amount schools could offer athletes at full cost of attendance. The Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling that the NCAA limits violated antitrust law.

Individual conferences may still set limits, but the Big 12 Board of Directors said in October 2021 its member schools could decide how much they want to offer in Alston awards up to the full amount.

Tech set up a program it named Strive and budgeted more than $1.8 million for the 2022-23 academic year to cover its Alston-award payments.

Botros, the chief financial officer for the Tech athletics department, said last week Tech plans to distribute its first Strive Program payments shortly before or shortly after Christmas.

"Essentially, as we put this together, we're saying that everything they do during each semester up until the last day of finals is how they qualify," Botros said. "As long as they're not in the portal, they're academically eligible by that last date ... because that can fluctuate. They can be in trouble academically and then recoup and get themselves back in a good position by the end of the semester, so we basically said the last day of finals of each semester is when we're going to look to see if they qualify for each element."

Asked specifically about players who have their names entered into the transfer portal this week, Botros said, "If they're in the portal as of the last day of finals or prior, yes, that would disqualify them" from receiving a Strive Program payment.

"But vice versa, if they made the decision to leave Texas Tech after the last day of finals," Botros said, "and we look back and say, 'All right, they did everything. They met their obligations to Texas Tech during that semester,' they wouldn't be penalized in that case."

The conflict for Tech football players wanting to leave could come up again after spring practice. The NCAA transfer portal is open May 1-15 and Tech's spring semester ends May 9.

Asked this week about the upcoming Strive Program payments, Tech defensive tackle Tony Bradford said he'd forgotten about them.

"I'm glad you reminded me," Bradford in a humorous tone, "because they're going to be owing me a lot of money."

As of Friday, Botros said, 307 Texas Tech athletes were in line to get a Strive Program check for this semester.

During a normal school year, Tech has between 400 and 420 athletes with about 300 to 320 on some amount of athletic scholarship. The total number of scholarships is 213. Texas Tech athletes in football, basketball, volleyball and women's tennis receive full scholarships, and athletes in other sports receive partial or "equivalency" scholarships.