The NCAA’s recommended alteration to its transfer rules could further complicate roster management for teams, though that’s not Brad Brownell’s primary concern with it.
A year after college sports’ governing body introduced the one-time transfer rule, the NCAA’s Division I Council recently recommended doing away with that legislation, which allows players to transfer and be immediately eligible at their new school once during their collegiate careers. If an athlete transfers a second time, then he or she would have to sit out a year before being eligible again.
But if the rule is eliminated, then athletes would be able to transfer as many times as they want without ever having to sit. Brownell, who’s entering his 14th year as Clemson’s head men’s basketball coach, said he hasn’t thought much about the NCAA’s desire to kill the one-time rule in part because he said, with thousands of athletes having entered the portal within the last year, it feels like unlimited transfers are already happening.
“I guess if you sign a kid who’s got a couple years left as a transfer, you’re very susceptible to losing him,” Brownell said.
Brownell’s program was a beneficiary of the portal this offseason with the addition of Boston College transfer Brevin Galloway, but Clemson also lost guards Nick Honor (Missouri) and Al-Amir Dawes (Seton Hall) to it. Brownell has expressed concern over roster management given the lack of regulation surrounding the portal, though the NCAA has also recommended specific times athletes are allowed to enter the portal in order to maintain immediate eligibility, or “entry windows”, to help address that issue.
Brownell voiced disappointment in the proposed elimination of the one-time transfer rule but primarily for a different reason.
“We talk about Clemson grit. Passion and perseverance toward a long-term goal,” Brownell said. “Staying and fighting, staying and figuring it out, working through your problems, working through your issues, learning, getting better and perseverance. I hate it as a coach and as a leader of men that I feel like we might not be teaching that or encouraging that behavior.”
Brownell continued.
“I’m just such a strong proponent that those are the people that overcome obstacles and get past where people think they should be and probably do more,” he said. “It scares me that I just don’t think at 18 and 19 (years old) and sometimes even the parents really understand that what your kid is struggling with as a freshman is not a bad thing. It’s probably a good thing for them, and it might be the first time that a lot of these guys have ever really struggled in athletics and playing. Like, let’s learn from it. Let’s grow from it. If it’s that important to you, you’ll fix it. You’ll work harder. You’ll get in the weight room. You’ll watch more film. You’ll do the things necessary to make it work.
“I hate it that I feel like that part of what we’re doing with our country, it’s just like we’re making things so easy to just go the other way and give in. That concerns me.”
