College coaches lose control
No one a big fan of transfer portal
The next college coach who complains about the transfer portal should be placed in it — virtually, of course — and left there to marinate in his own hypocrisy.
Coaches have it pretty good, you know. They make crazy money. They come and go as they please, abandoning their schools (and their recruits) in order to improve their lot in life. That’s been the case for decades.
Yet, many of them revolt when athletes want the same kind of freedom.
When the transfer-portal system arrived in the fall of 2018, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo spoke of how much he hated the word “portal.” He wondered if the idea of switching schools so easily “makes you not work for things.”
Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi called it the “ugly toilet portal.”
No, really, he did. Penn State football coach James Franklin was no big fan, either, but he apparently evolved, all the way to where his program was declared a “transfer portal winner” just a month ago.
Others must evolve, as well, or quickly be left for road kill. I had to laugh when Kyle Austin, who covers Michigan State basketball for mlive.com, was asked in a recent mailbag about Izzo’s current attitude toward the transfer portal.
“Izzo may hate that the portal exists, but not as much as he hates the idea of other programs having an advantage over his,” Austin responded. “So yes, I think the number of transfers coming into East Lansing will keep ticking upward, including this offseason.”
Coaches worry about “free
agency” ruining college sports. They don’t like their players being poached. What they really hate is surrendering control. But with the NCAA expected to pass legislation that will soon allow athletes a onetime transfer without penalty, they are rapidly surrendering it.
Under the old rules, coaches had the leverage. In order to switch schools, athletes had to first try to obtain the coach’s permission. Failing that, they went to an administrator, and even if permission was granted, the athlete in most cases had to sit a year.
The abuse of such power — coaches and schools blocking transfers just because they could — helped lead to the ultra transparent transfer portal.
Now, as the portals burst with new entries, certain coaches and their apologists lash out. Just this week, Dick Vitale reported via Twitter that more than 800 players are currently in college basketball’s transfer portal (no truth that Pitt has provided 740 of them) and opined that the one-time transfer rule “is going to create a nightmare for coaches & their programs.”
To which I say, practice what you preach, gentlemen. Deal with it. Control what you can control. Learn to survive and thrive, because as Duquesne basketball coach Keith Dambrot suggested recently on 93.7 The Fan, the old way is gone.
Pitt coach Jeff Capel better put his portal cap on this offseason, because it might be the only way to build a decent Pitt team in 2021-22.
The notion of “building a program” has faded, replaced by the prospect of building a different team each season. It’s like fantasy sports in that respect, and it’s not all bad.
It’s just reality, and those who navigate it best will win.
Look at the Sweet 16. Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars start four transfers. Arkansas, under coach Eric Musselman, has five transfers among its top nine players.
“That’s just the way it is today,” Sampson told The Associated Press. “Thirty years ago, people that didn’t know what they didn’t know turned their nose up at transfers. Now, if you’re not taking transfers, you’re behind.”
It’s also true that the transfer portal will hurt many athletes. Once they enter the portal, they lose financial aid from their current school, so if they aren’t picked up, they’re out of luck, which is to say, out of a scholarship. And with portals bursting, many will find themselves out of luck.
That’s the risk. But enough with the idea that this generation is allergic to adversity and just wants the easy way out. Mostly, this is a case of kids looking to better their lot in life.
Just like so many coaches before them.