We're not asking for much. We just want the National Letter of Intent to either be abolished or rewritten. Seth believes we are the only two "schmos" writing about the inequity of the NLI. Come on. We need some help. The NLI is an absurdly one-side contract.
We both wrote about it last year. This year, I had active conversations with two players and their families about not signing. Seth actually found someone who is so far refusing to sign the NLI.
Today, Seth wrote about DeMarcus Cousins, a top recruit who wants to attend UAB, but only if Mike Davis is the coach. Sounds reasonable. If Davis is not at UAB next season, then Cousins wants UAB to agree in writing that it will release him from his National Letter of Intent (NLI).
Cousins doesn't sound like a radical:
"My whole point of committing to the school was to play for coach Mike Davis," Cousins told me [Davis] Monday. "If he gets another job offer or leaves for his own personal reasons, I want to be able to leave [UAB] without any problems. I need that in writing so there won't be any issues. That's real important to me."
I also wrote about National Letter of Intent in my September Basketball Times column. I will continue to write on the subject, but here's my central argument:
The National Letter of Intent (NLI) [is] ann agreement that heavily favors athletic departments over recruits. In fact, lawyers I've consulted with believe the NLI is what can legally be defined as a "contract of adhesion," which is "a standard-form contract prepared by one party, to be signed by the party in a weaker position…who adheres to the contract with little choice about the terms." Technically, the NLI is a voluntary program, but unless an athlete is a superstar, he or she does not have market power to dictate terms of enrollment.
Stay tuned: Unless the NCAA and its members transforms NLI into a fair, two-sided agreement , I will have more to say on the subject. And I know Seth Davis will do the same. Bank on it.
--Marc Isenberg
The notion that a player commits to a school and not to a coach is absurd and outdated. Sure, it may have been that way long ago when travel was more difficult and a desire to stay close to home or connect with a favorite childhood program was great -- but we are in an age where those are no longer factors in a choice of schools.
Today, kids are choosing programs... and that means choosing the coach. If a coach can leave, then the kid should be able to leave -- period, end of story. Anything less is indentured servitude.
Oh, and while we are at it, lets address the absurdity of the NCAA rule that penalizes a kid for changing schools but does not penalize the school if it decides to yank a kid's scholarship. It is done in football all the time. Player A does not play as well as you had hoped so you just drop him from scholarship and give his money to someone else. So long as schools can do that, there should be equal rights for the player who wants to transfer.
-Jason
Posted by: Jason E. | November 19, 2008 at 06:55 AM
agree with all three of you--all it would take is a legal ACLU challenge
Posted by: andy fine | November 19, 2008 at 07:25 AM
Jason E.,
Guaranteed scholarships would go along way towards ending abuse of the players. If you coupled that with stripping scholarship spots (for the remainder of the scholarship term) in the case that a player drops out or leaves for the pros, it would create a revolution in recruiting. And the coaches would hate it. It is not going to happen anytime soon. . .
Posted by: Profane | November 19, 2008 at 04:33 PM