NCAA proposal limiting eligibility - what do we think?

[Fletcher]

Athletes to have eligibility for 5 yrs. after turning age 19 (or graduating HS, whichever is earlier). Limited exceptions (religious missions, military, maternity leave). Redshirts would become a thing of the past.

This probably would not survive legal challenges, but (if it did) would be a great start to clearing out all these 5th, 6th, and 7th year wrestlers and opening up more opportunities for HS wrestlers.

[Dark Energy]

I love it!!!!  
 

Stop having ridiculously drawn out tenures.  Keep it clean and simple.  Simplify process for all.  Remove unneeded cost.  Make it easier to plan and strategize.  Get moving with your life!   Stop warping incentives.

Kinda wish even fewer exceptions.  But am good with what is proposed.  Life happens folks.  Things get in the way of plans.  Oh well.  A good life lesson.  World isn’t going to bend to your situation.  Make the most of the situation and know you are being treated just as all others are (vs those with resources helping them get a way to get extra eligibility).

Love the change.  Hope it happens.

[Hilton Head Joe]

Got to cap age at 24. Noone shall compete in a collegiate event having reached their 24th Bday. I like 23rd honestly. Other than PED testing the age cheaters need to be dealt with first. I like the 5 years total with an age cap. I mean think about it 26 year old Yonger on or off PEDs vs true freshman that is a TRUE freshman at 18 years old. Legalized cheating. Sorry hold back guys but you are cheaters.  

[CHROMEBIRD]

I saw that the 5 for 5 proposal would limit most hardship waivers, so ORS and MRS may go away or become much more restrictive.

It's funny that traditional redshirts and greyshirts would be gone. The original spirit of RS/GS was to give athletes a season to settle into college life and academics since they're technically there to earn a degree. Now the NCAA is like "nahh f that, these are pro ahh athletes". The proposed rules are probably to limit eligibility lawsuits, including the ones coming the other way, with pro athletes like James Nnaji coming back to college. 

[Fletcher]

5 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

It's funny that traditional redshirts and greyshirts would be gone. The original spirit of RS/GS was to give athletes a season to settle into college life and academics since they're technically there to earn a degree. Now the NCAA is like "nahh f that, these are pro ahh athletes". 

The 5 year rule still builds in an extra year, since most (non-athlete) college kids graduate after 4 yrs. or at age 22. So effectively still includes the redshirt year.

[CHROMEBIRD]

11 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

The 5 year rule still builds in an extra year, since most (non-athlete) college kids graduate after 4 yrs. or at age 22. So effectively still includes the redshirt year.

You're absolutely right. The gap year now comes at the expense of an athlete's eligibility, rather than stacking shirts & waivers and preserving eligibility as is the case today. Ivy League kids are probably laughing, since they've been living with 4 for 4.

[Caveira]

Age cheating being gone would be great 

[CHROMEBIRD]

46 minutes ago, Hilton Head Joe said:

Got to cap age at 24. Noone shall compete in a collegiate event having reached their 24th Bday. I like 23rd honestly. Other than PED testing the age cheaters need to be dealt with first. I like the 5 years total with an age cap. I mean think about it 26 year old Yonger on or off PEDs vs true freshman that is a TRUE freshman at 18 years old. Legalized cheating. Sorry hold back guys but you are cheaters.  

There's a built-in age cap

[Fletcher]

BYU needs to bring back wrestling to capitalize on the religious mission exception.

[Hilton Head Joe]

16 minutes ago, Caveira said:

Age cheating being gone would be great 

Absolutely would be wonderful. Not the kids fault at all. It is feckless small di.. fathers. Full fledged organized cheating. If they do this and bring back true testing for PEDs then we have a somewhat even playing field.   

[Hilton Head Joe]

17 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

BYU needs to bring back wrestling to capitalize on the religious mission exception.

As much as I like this I would be opposed. Fair playing field no matter what. 5 years total starting at 19 with age cap at 24. You could be a 5 time champ right? Injuries are just part of it. 

[GimJustafan]

2 hours ago, Fletcher said:

Athletes to have eligibility for 5 yrs. after turning age 19 (or graduating HS, whichever is earlier). Limited exceptions (religious missions, military, maternity leave). Redshirts would become a thing of the past.

This probably would not survive legal challenges, but (if it did) would be a great start to clearing out all these 5th, 6th, and 7th year wrestlers and opening up more opportunities for HS wrestlers.

 

[LoserJucoMan]

I'm not going to lie these are all horrible ideas. Eligibility abuse is not an issue to where these things need to be implemented. It's fun for jokes but at the end of the day it legit doesn't matter. You're never "too old" to compete in sports. Please show an example of a situation that's so blatant something like this would even need to be implemented in the first place

[Fletcher]

1 hour ago, LoserJucoMan said:

I'm not going to lie these are all horrible ideas. Eligibility abuse is not an issue to where these things need to be implemented. It's fun for jokes but at the end of the day it legit doesn't matter. You're never "too old" to compete in sports. Please show an example of a situation that's so blatant something like this would even need to be implemented in the first place

Nothing's stopping these elder statesmen from wrestling post-collegiately. There's clubs and training centers everywhere and open tournaments year-round. They just can't compete in the NCAA.

[LoserJucoMan]

4 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

Nothing's stopping these elder statesmen from wrestling post-collegiately. There's clubs and training centers everywhere and open tournaments year-round. They just can't compete in the NCAA.

Okay let's look at this pragmatically:

It doesn't make sense for people attending an institution where students are paying tens of thousands a semester should be excluded from participating in athletics because of age. There are a million reasons why someone might not go to college straight out of high school, but limiting access to athletics because one doesn't have the money to go to college immediately is ridiculous. 

The club argument would hold ground if once again it didn't cost money. It's the equivalent of saying "You had to take time off from college? sucks for you now go play pickup in the park". On top of that most of those clubs are based in a college that actively recruits the wrestlers on the team.

Don't get me started on NIL. These nonsensical restrictions is why the lawsuit that created NIL happened in the first place.

Do you have any examples of older athletes that somehow made it unfair that would back up your point?

 

[Fletcher]

12 minutes ago, LoserJucoMan said:

Okay let's look at this pragmatically:

It doesn't make sense for people attending an institution where students are paying tens of thousands a semester should be excluded from participating in athletics because of age. There are a million reasons why someone might not go to college straight out of high school, but limiting access to athletics because one doesn't have the money to go to college immediately is ridiculous. 

The club argument would hold ground if once again it didn't cost money. It's the equivalent of saying "You had to take time off from college? sucks for you now go play pickup in the park". On top of that most of those clubs are based in a college that actively recruits the wrestlers on the team.

Don't get me started on NIL. These nonsensical restrictions is why the lawsuit that created NIL happened in the first place.

Do you have any examples of older athletes that somehow made it unfair that would back up your point?

 

You've got some valid points and I agree a strict age cutoff sounds arbitrary. I'd prefer a rule saying you're limited to 4 yrs. of eligibility regardless of age, but absent that age may be the next option.

And it's not about unfairness. It's about people staying in college for as long as possible for non-academic reasons. College athletics is supposed to be an extracurricular - something kids do in their free time while they're focused in their main goal of getting an education and a degree.

[alex1fly]

I mean... they could just be better about enforcing redshirt criteria. Olympic redshirt? Only if you took every opportunity to make the Olympic team. Medical redshirt? Only if you missed a set % of the season due to a documented injury and could not compete for the remainder of the season. It doesn't seem that complex. To get crazy you could throw away the Olympic redshirt, make actual redshirts only for freshman, and/or have redshirts get assigned/applied at the time of their occurrence.

Edited April 8 by alex1fly

[LoserJucoMan]

32 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

You've got some valid points and I agree a strict age cutoff sounds arbitrary. I'd prefer a rule saying you're limited to 4 yrs. of eligibility regardless of age, but absent that age may be the next option.

And it's not about unfairness. It's about people staying in college for as long as possible for non-academic reasons. College athletics is supposed to be an extracurricular - something kids do in their free time while they're focused in their main goal of getting an education and a degree.

You're preaching to the choir here. As an example when you look at the details of all of these D1 football players that get paperweight degrees and end up with nothing because of an injury or something while these coaches make millions you can't help but feel dirty. I'm not against a strict 4 year cutoff. I absolutely do think some of these guys need to make more of an effort towards degrees but that issue in itself is the NCAA. I think the only reason this rule change is being proposed is so the NCAA can take advantage of young impressionable athletes. Same reason why they're trying to limit the amount of transfers you can do now

[GrandOlm]

4 hours ago, Fletcher said:

Nothing's stopping these elder statesmen from wrestling post-collegiately. There's clubs and training centers everywhere and open tournaments year-round. They just can't compete in the NCAA.

Well the economics of wrestling is. Meanwhile, these college wrestlers are getting paid 100k apparently. 

[Fletcher]

12 minutes ago, GrandOlm said:

Well the economics of wrestling is. Meanwhile, these college wrestlers are getting paid 100k apparently. 

The percentage of college wrestlers across D1-D3 getting $100K/yr. is effectively 0%.

[ionel]

15 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

The percentage of college wrestlers across D1-D3 getting $100K/yr. is effectively 0%.

rv would say you are 110% wrong. 

Edited April 9 by ionel

[Fletcher]

18 minutes ago, ionel said:

rv would say you are 110% wrong. 

There's about 8-8.5K college wrestlers. I bet less than 10 are getting $100K - I don't care what your luxury camper says.

[ionel]

16 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

There's about 8-8.5K college wrestlers. I bet less than 10 are getting $100K - I don't care what your luxury camper says.

I'll take the over on the 10.  

[flyingcement]

7 minutes ago, ionel said:

I'll take the over on the 10.  

I'll bet 100 cinnacoins that we won't be able to prove it anyway

[ionel]

21 minutes ago, flyingcement said:

I'll bet 100 cinnacoins that we won't be able to prove it anyway

It'd be easy to prove that its 11+

but I'll call your 100 cinnacoins and raise you 200 jimmybucks!