Here's Why Institutions Will Take the Fall for the NCAA's Decision on Eligibility

Almost a month ago, I published a blog piece covering the sudden loss of intercollegiate careers after schools nationwide shut down due to COVID-19.

I received an onslaught of positive feedback for my perspective on the issue. Even at that time, so many questions hung in the air concerning our health as a nation. Now 30 days later, our world looks drastically different.

On March 30, 2020, the NCAA in all of its infinite wisdom and in typical national office fashion, threw together a committee and released its decision to restore senior eligibility to not only spring sport seniors, but to all classes whom had their careers cut short. On the surface, it sounds great.

As expected, there was immediate rejoicing by the parental and athlete community with praise from those who began breathing sighs of relief that the athletes may get a second chance. I scrolled Twitter feeds and noticed well known coaches like Mike Candrea at Arizona Softball sharing their stance. Coach Candrea tweeted out his support in advocating that eligibility should be restored. Following Candrea's tweet, I expressed an urgent level of caution around any kind of quick-fix legislation for eligibility during this crisis. Why? Because decisions like this born solely out of desire for pets on the head for political correctness are all about the short game.

True to form, in so many NCAA legislation discussions, it is often the larger Division I NCAA schools that have the luxury of influencing and shaping collegiate athletics from the top down. This pattern acts a domino effect across all three divisions.

While my earlier blog piece covered the sadness and reality from a sport-loss perspective, I was admittedly not one of the first to cheer on the swift re-instatement of eligibility. With the issue being so complex and so many student-athletes, coaches, teams and departmental hearts at stake, I knew any decision made without careful thought would plunge us further into confusion and chaos.

As a coach at a mid-major D1, I do not coach a spring sport. However, I can still feel the stress coming down the pipeline quickly as we are no strangers to bracing for impact on some of the NCAA's notoriously poor directives. Anyone recalling the image and likeness conversation or even the transfer portal nightmare, knows exactly what I am referring to.

As a coach, we recruit in cycles and every step of the way is crucial in crafting that timeline. For my spring sport colleagues, I can only imagine the emotional and logistical wrench this continues to throw into the mix.

Across all sports, coaches in my network had varying degrees of reactions and questions derived from this decision.

Questions such as:

Where is the money going to come from? What if I don't want any of my seniors back? How will this impact my future incoming classes? Are we going to advocate to help our seniors while actively committing to hurt our incoming freshmen and other classes? How will this impact my team culture and travel roster? Who is going to foot the bill for the extra roster number resources? What if I am in a conference that only permits a certain number of athletes to travel? How does this impact the transfer portal? How does this affect strength and conditioning and athletic training personnel, medical staff, locker room capacity, team meals etc?

The NCAA then released this:

Members will adjust financial aid rules to allow teams to carry more members on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and student-athletes who had been in their last year of eligibility who decide to stay. In a nod to the financial uncertainty faced by higher education, the Council vote also provided schools with the flexibility to give students the opportunity to return for 2020-21 without requiring that athletics aid be provided at the same level awarded for 2019-20.

Yes, you read that correctly. The sole decision to flip college athletics on its ear during a global pandemic was explained in one paragraph. The NCAA said sure, eligibility is an option for all our seniors and you can come back if you want to but, the school just isn't going to pay for it.

Wow. But, wait...what? There has to be more guidance, right?

Nope. No deployment timelines were offered, no mention of impact on NLI's or incoming classes, no concern noted for team culture impact, no mention of budget relief for additional resources for the increase in roster size and the list goes on. For an organization that has previously crafted and passed actual bylaws related to the allowable size dimensions of a handwritten recruiting note, this eligibility decision feels more than uncharacteristically non-specific.

The NCAA is deeming this decision important enough for them to make right now without offering any kind of guidance to our institutions nor feasible or reasonable measures of deployment. Beyond this paragraph, so much is left completely up to three different divisional member bodies all with varying resources and missions. What an absolute cluster.

But then again, the NCAA like the USOC is notorious for not wanting to take ownership over anything within its membership schools that does not bring in dollars or reflect positively on them. After all, with their dismissive nature on harder issues like sexual assault and athlete violence at places like Baylor and Michigan State, did anyone really think they would take interest in owning this self-created eligibility mess?

To the average person reading who has zero involvement in athletics, the complexities of this issue on an individual institution basis will likely escape most. What appears to seem wildly simple to outsiders is actually horribly complicated yet the NCAA saw no issue creating that complication. Not only creating it, but tossing it in at a time that will likely be regarded as one of the most economically uncertain eras of any of our lifetimes.

This is a leadership fail at its finest but wait, there's more.

On April 10th, Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez announced that Badger Athletics would not be opening the NCAA's politically correct Christmas gift with its senior athletes.

Let's remember, before you throw salt at Alvarez, the Badgers are not the first leaders in this decision as the Ivy League announced days ago that they would not be honoring the NCAA's decision for 5th year eligibility.

However, given the profile of Wisconsin athletics it is likely more schools will follow suit now that a major D-I has stepped up to the plate first.

The option for senior eligibility may indeed be financially and philosophically feasible for some schools. In that regard, if the institution, compliance officers, the coaches, the department and the athletes are all willing to put forth the hours, resources and develop creative solutions to ease the all-around impact this will cause, I say go for it.

Every single institution in the NCAA at each division maintains a mission, a philosophy and a set of resources. How they operate with all three is their business and one school being able to turn the nightmare of its college seniors into a dream where they get a second chance, unfortunately, does not automatically make it so for another.

Shouting back in protest at Wisconsin or any other school that duplicates this decision will likely be fruitless.

We live in an age now where fair and unfair are the only two phrases anyone wants to hear. We suffer greatly as a society with any kind of moderation where we either let everyone do everything or no one gets to do anything at all. There is and will be a middle ground here for many struggling schools while others will simply not be able to shoulder the dream for everyone. We must accept this reality of varying situations and work to get back to stressing the value of human life in this pandemic.

Instead of penning that nasty letter to your athlete's AD or the president, I urge you to write to the NCAA with your disagreement for their lack of guidance and their reckless crafting of false hope in making promises to the 2020 seniors that realistically had such a small chance to be successful in universal deployment without it being at the expense of so many others.

As a coach you learn, your game plan can look great on paper but it's the deployment and execution in how you prepare your players for implementing that plan. The NCAA is like the coach of all of our institutions and at minimum they have supplied the game plan to the team just moments before kick off. Their politically correct decision includes zero intent to support execution at the same time the stadium we are competing in is empty, while the world around us is being affected by COVID-19.

The NCAA's decision is a prime example of poor leadership where the generals are consistently neglecting to take more interest in visiting the actual battlefields to understand and assess the environments and resources their soldiers require to win the war. 

Now for the good news. Both the Ivy League and Wisconsin made their own choices based on what worked for their institutions. Athletic directors and leaders still have time to choose what works, while the alternative is to wander aimlessly and reactively around waiting to see which schools choose what. Wisconsin's AD has proven that you can say yes or no to the NCAA as an individual institution. Remember, it is the right of every school who is also trying desperately to cope with the fact that people are dying from this pandemic, to choose whether this is a feasible priority of value or not.

Under these circumstances, I ask for mercy for our institutions, departments, compliance officers and our coaches whom have been set up to fail in this poorly constructed decision by the one organization who is supposed to be leading us through all this darkness.

Please share with anyone affected by the NCAA's eligibility decision. Tweet @TFCoachCarlson #BEFEARLESS