Transfer portal offers relief for some, few answers for others
An inside look at the popular risk in the NCAA
LOS ANGELES – Tell the truth. As Norman Steele saw it, it was all his son, Chris, could do. Explain to the NCAA exactly what went down at Florida to necessitate his transfer to USC. Then, cross your fingers and hope for the best.
“You just don’t know what might happen,” Norman said. “You don’t know because it’s up to their judgment call. We felt we had a pretty strong case, but you just never know.”
For athletes weathering the NCAA’S convoluted transfer and waiver processes, that crippling uncertainty is hardly uncommon.
At USC, where freshman Bru Mccoy remains in waiver limbo, and at UCLA, where transfer quarterback Colson Yankoff’s immediate eligibility has been blocked by his previous school, that process has been put under the microscope this offseason.
The transfer portal, which went into effect last October, was intended to empower college athletes in revenue sports, replacing rules which required prospective transfers to receive permission before contacting other schools.
But amid myriad changes necessitated by the portal and updated guidelines governing immediate eligibility waivers, the process remains frustratingly opaque and inconsistent for the college athletes at the center of it, while NCAA coaches move freely from job to job, wielding power over transfer decisions whenever it suits them.
For Chris Steele, the highly touted cornerback prospect from Bellflower St. John Bosco High, his reasons for leaving Florida after one semester had nothing to do with football.
Steele and his family were upset with the school’s handling of an issue with his roommate, quarterback Jalon Jones, who had been accused of sexual battery. Outside of that, his father says, the family had no problem with Florida.
“But that was a glaring situation,” Norman Steele said. So Steele entered the transfer portal, beginning a long and winding process that would bring him back to USC, where he’d first committed.
Steele did not need Florida’s permission to do so, as he would have before last October. In order to receive immediate eligibility in L.A., though, he and USC compliance would need to make a compelling case to the NCAA.
In petitioning for a waiver, Steele’s only control over the process would be a personal statement included in the application. To be approved, his case would need to prove “documented mitigating circumstances outside of the student-athlete’s control,” which, “directly impact the health, safety or well-being of the student-athlete.”