Don't like the transfer portal? Greedy coaches are to blame for the wildness

It might seem like college athletics is a runaway train, but the playing field is leveling out

The craziness that has become college athletics? All the lamenting about the “Way it used to be?” Who knows where this is all going to end.

However, one thing keeps emerging from your scribe’s noggin’ when hearing legendary coaches like Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma and, now, Arkansas coach John Calipari complain about the college athletic scene becoming “transactional” and “Playing against much older players.”
The coaches need to look in the mirror. Why? It was the money-grabbing ability of coaches, not Auriemma and Calipari, like former Colorado and Michigan State head knucklehead Mel Tucker busting the door open for this craziness.

I’ll try and explain. We’ve always known that young teenage athletes usually select a school because of the relationship with the head coach. Long ago, it did seem blatantly unfair that a coach, let’s use the disgraced Tucker as an example, could walk away from the players and program with ease. Sure, there were “buyouts” that needed to be paid but the reality was coaches have been free to break contracts and leave for what they perceive to be greener pastures for quite some time.

Given the sobering truth that players, there are a few exceptions, sign at a school because of the coach, the chorus began to sing a tad louder each year to the unfairness of the alleged adults in the room being able to move about freely while NCAA rules prevented players from doing the same. The coach leaves? Players should be able to look around too. Fair is fair.

Deion Sanders tells players to "Jump or Ride" on Portal day

I found Auriemma’s comments after UConn’s women’s team was eliminated very interesting. He’s an old guard kinda guy. The Italian-born has been the Huskies’ head coach for 39 years. The 70-year-old bemoaning the fact the college game has become “transactional” certainly has merit. “Coaches today have no power concerning their teams. Players not happy with playing time and other issues, just leave for another school. It’s hard to build a program and team unity when there’s such turnover year to year.”

The winner of 11 national titles is spot on. Colorado’s Tad Boyle is experiencing this challenge right now. Many players, who could have returned for another season at the foot of the Flatirons, are heading out the door. Eddie Lampkin, J’Vonne Hadley and Luke O’Brien could have returned for another season. They’re gone. The futures of NBA prospects KJ Simpson and Cody Williams? One gone, the other? TBD. NIL money is at play here too. Calipari’s new deal with Arkansas? It gives the 65-year-old a reported $5-million per year to retain and recruit players.

The words of CU football coach Deion “Prime” Sanders ring in my head: “These players cost money.” They sure do.

It’s laughable to hear Calipari complaining about his successful but controversial philosophy of recruiting super talented players destined for the NBA.

Most Kentucky stars were “One and done.” It’s damn difficult to build any real team chemistry and, to Auriemma’s point, avoid a transactional culture but it’s hilarious to hear Calipari complain that his youth-driven Wildcats were often playing against, “Grown men almost 24-25 years old.” Well, that’s what was created through the NCAA allowing an extra year of eligibility because of COVID, then the recent restraining order preventing the disintegrating institution from enforcing its “Only one transfer per student/athlete” rule the courts have decided ain’t fair to the players.

All this turmoil began years ago with coaches moving from one lucrative job to another and the noise getting louder and louder that young men and women, wearing the school colors and playing a huge role raking in the cash, were getting robbed in the process.

The coaching profession has many incredible mentors. Tad Boyle is one of them. Coach Prime and JR Payne are too. CU athletic director Rick George has done a great job with these hires. College athletics is in the midst of great upheaval. Where and when this tsunami of change recedes is anybody’s guess.

It all started with greedy coaches taking advantage of the system and jumping to more lucrative deals. That college athletics has become transactional? Hey, turnabout is fair play, right?