Willie Allen drama reveals the hypocrisy of the NCAA transfer structure

The NCAA loves to treat academics as the most important factor in the athlete experience, when it benefits the NCAA.

Willie Allen has been blocked from continuing his education at the institute of his choice because he plays football for an NCAA-member institution.

Allen, who announced his decision to transfer from LSU to TCU on June 4, has been blocked from transferring to TCU or any other SEC school by LSU according to Gil Lebreton of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Allen originally chose LSU over TCU, who both recruited him heavily, but has since changed his mind about where he would like to continue both his collegiate football career and education.

The decision could be seen as the pettiness of a coach whose ego has been harmed. TCU recently snagged a commitment from the top high school quarterback in Louisiana. LSU head coach Ed Orgeron has blocked coaching staffs from out-of-state programs from attending football camps in Louisiana, in an obvious move to give himself an advantage in collecting in-state players on his roster. Ross Dellenger of The Advocate reports that LSU believes that TCU was in contact with Allen while he was on LSU’s active roster, which would be a violation of NCAA rules.

LSU’s actions, or rather lack thereof, seem to contradict that belief, however. If LSU genuinely believes that TCU is guilty of tampering, then why hasn’t the football program filed a grievance on the matter with the NCAA? Instead of going after TCU for a possible rule violation, LSU has instead put Allen in a position to make a difficult choice: either give up playing NCAA football or choose another school.

That leads into the hypocritical aspect of the current NCAA transfer structure. The NCAA loves to wax eloquent about how its athletes are students first, and most of them will “be going pro in something other than sports.” It puts out press releases boasting about graduation rates among athletes based on numbers produced in cooked books. It treats amateurism as a sacred cow that must be protected at all costs and uses the possible erosion of academic standards as a defense for why it won’t allow its member institutions to pay their athletes for their play.

All the while, it leaves the decision on where these unpaid, potential graduates who will probably be “going pro” in a non-sports related field can pursue that education which is so sacred up to the athletic departments. A student at any NCAA-member institution who does not participate in NCAA athletics can transfer to any other school at their own discretion at any time without any penalty whatsoever.

Once an athlete becomes part of the NCAA football plantation, however, the NCAA forces them to choose between their off-the-field interests and supplying the labor that the NCAA football industry desperately needs. Allen can forfeit his scholarship and forego the rest of his collegiate football career to attend TCU, or he can find another program. The problem is that unlike the vast majority of the men and women attending classes at LSU who aren’t football players, it isn’t even academic staff that have made that decision for Allen, much less Allen himself. It’s the Tigers athletic department, who have very little if anything to do with Allen’s education.

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The problem is bigger than Allen, or an ego-bruised football coach, or possible tampering by TCU. The NCAA transfer structure is broken, in that the one person most qualified to make the best decision about the educational goals and future for an athlete – the athlete her/himself – is the only person powerless to make that decision. The NCAA says that the academic success of its athletes is paramount, but has created a system in which that interest is secondary to the interests of its football programs. Once again, the NCAA’s actions are screaming so loudly that its words can’t be heard.