College Sports Business News - The Publication for College Sports Administrators

FREE Todd O’Brien!! I have been beating this drum via the virtual universe for the past few days in what I see as a blatant example of what is wrong with college athletics and the control over athletes for the purposes of so called “competitive equity.” I make no secret that I feel athletes should be given more rights to maximize their educational utility as much as their athletic utility. After all it is supposed to be about education—right? The athletic scholarship by definition is supposed to be an academic, not athletic, award—right? In reality it is hard to argue that any of this is true with regard to big time commercialized athletics in today’s climate. Who is Todd O’Brien you ask? 

He is just the latest poster boy for one of the major ills that plague college sports—and that is the current one-time graduate student exception transfer rule. A few years ago the NCAA allowed athletes who graduated with eligibility remaining to go to another school with no questions asked, to get another degree or pursue graduate school while continuing to play their sport. What a great opportunity to free students to maximize their educational opportunities using athletics as an impetus to further one’s education. After all, isn’t that what it is supposed to be about? There was not a huge rush of athletes being able to take advantage of this new found educational freedom, but there were some. As opposed to staying at their current school and possibly pursuing an educational option that might not be the best fit just to continue playing, this rule opened up options such as law school or other professional educational opportunities for the few that graduate with eligibility remaining.

Everyone should have been cheering this educational opportunity for a select few, but along the way something happened.  Coaches and administrators feared loss of control over the very athletes that were their meal ticket and who might (shudder) leave them and play for someone else even though it might be in the athlete’s best educational interest. One former head Division I football coach felt “it is not fair for me to recruit a player twice.”  Not fair to whom? Are you kidding me? Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner Tom Yeager contributed this gem and said the rule had many “unintended consequences.” The only unintended consequence he was worried about was losing control of what he and others in intercollegiate athletics view as simply property and their right to control.

As expected and to retain control over the athlete, the NCAA, under immense pressure from people like Yeager, quickly amended the rule to only allow those to use the exception that can prove the move is for an academic, not athletic reason. Meaning if a comparable program is offered at the baccalaureate institution the athlete graduated from, an athlete cannot transfer to another school for an educational purpose because it is available at the first institution. Not as good as the first rule, but at least an opportunity could present itself for some athletes unless schools tried to the fight the “academic exception” and some have. Still, a few athletes have been able to take advantage of this since the change, most notably Jeremiah Masoli who went to Ole Miss after graduating from Oregon in 2010.

Enter O’Brien, who is currently enrolled at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has graduated from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, after transferring there from Bucknell, and fulfilled his obligation to that school as a scholarship athlete by graduating. According to O’Brien, he enrolled at UAB because of the graduate Public Administration program with a focus in Community Development that is not available at St. Joe’s. Sounds good and within the rules, however nothing can ever be that simple in college sports, especially if it benefits the athlete.

In O’ Brien’s case, St. Joe’s feels like it should not have to release him and they are claiming he is leaving for an athletic, not academic reason. The NCAA inexplicably backed up St. Joe’s by denying O’Brien’s legislative waiver for a release. This goes to prove that the new one-time graduate student exception has about as much teeth as the appeal rights an athlete has for a one-year scholarship cancelled at the end of the term of an award. The cards are held by the coaches and athletic department. Except for rare exceptions, these waivers or appeals are rarely, if ever, approved.

O’Brien claims that St. Joe’s longtime coach, Phil Martelli, is refusing his release based on many reasons, not the least of which is that Martelli feels that O’Brien left them high and dry with a scholarship available at too late of a date to offer it to someone else. He calls O’Brien “disloyal” and seems to be upset that St. Joe’s paid for his final three classes of summer school and then he decided to leave (something O’Brien’s father has offered to pay back to alleviate the impasse). Of course coaches continually leave teams high and dry as they chase the money and better jobs, but their disloyalty is rewarded, while athletes like O’Brien have to sit and watch the year go by.

During the adjudication with the NCAA, St. Joe’s went as far to say that O’Brien’s move was more for athletic, than academic, reasons; but, O’Brien presents a compelling case as he has enrolled in a program not offered at St. Joe’s and in an area he has already worked in via an internship. St. Joe’s and the NCAA are not talking, instead relying on canned statements that state they consider the matter closed. Cyberspace spiked the past few days with dozens of reporters and even Dick Vitale coming to O’Brien’s defense on Twitter. This prompted Joe Lunardi, a St. Joe's administrator, in an apparent momentary lapse of reason to tweet “about you not knowing the whole story” but doing it with a wink icon. That is about as far as St. Joe’s has come in defending and explaining its actions.

They claim they cannot talk further because this is a student privacy issue that falls under the Family and Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) or what is commonly called the Buckley Amendment. I disagree. St. Joe’s and coach Martelli need to talk about this decision and should do so quickly, or they deserve everything that is coming to them from both a public relations and recruiting perspective.

O’Brien has already released his records via NCAA forms that he signed while an athlete at St. Joes. In other words—St. Joes can talk about this and saying they cannot is a cop-out. They claim that there are two sides to every story and I say—then tell that story. These are O’Brien’s records to release and frankly do not fall under private educational records that FERPA intended to protect, which are educational records linking identifiable academic information.

Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reporters Todd Jones and Jill Riepenhoff did yeoman’s work on the misuse and misapplication of the Buckley Amendment that athletic departments and the NCAA use in an attempt to shield themselves from criticism, academic clustering, and shamefully in this case, simply doing the right thing. I urge everyone involved in college athletics to read “Secrecy 101” in the Columbus Dispatch from December 2010 and Cleaning up Buckley, from Jon Ericson and Matt Salzwedel in the Wisconsin Law Review, to get a full picture of how the Buckley Amendment has been misused specifically with regard to institutional behavior such as this and hopefully get an understanding of how to prevent this in the future.

St. Joe’s is taking a deserved public beating over this matter. It is possible that O’Brien did not do all the right things, but saying he waited too long is a very poor excuse to do this. Is there more? We will not know unless they speak and not hide behind a law that is not applicable in this case. Even if O’Brien chafed St. Joe’s in some way, the university gains nothing by not releasing him to pursue and maximize his educational future. Continuing to act in this way is contrary to the principles of higher education and St. Joe’s can add themselves to a long list of schools and coaches who prove every day that athletic success and revenue generation far outweighs anything academic in today’s college sports landscape.

Sadly in the process they are misusing a federal law to protect the very status quo that we often say does not exist in college sports. Perhaps in this holiday season St. Joe’s might get a heart and do the right thing, or O’Brien’s legal team, led by the capable Donald Maurice Jackson, can legally pull back the curtain of Buckley and shame fine institution like St. Joseph’s into doing the right thing and releasing Todd O’Brien to play basketball at UAB.

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Dr. B. David Ridpath, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sport Administration at Ohio University in the School of Recreation and Sport Sciences. He began his current position in 2006. Dr. Ridpath has several years of practical experience in the sports industry and teaches classes in marketing, sponsorship, risk management, sports law, issues in intercollegiate athletics, and other areas to include serving as faculty advisor and Associate General Manager of the Southern Ohio Copperheads, a summer collegiate wooden bat baseball team headquartered in Athens. The Copperheads are a main experiential learning laboratory for graduate and undergraduate sports administration and sports management students and is entirely student run. He also serves as Associate Director of the Ralph and Lucy Schey Sales Center and is the director of the undergraduate sport management sales certificate program, currently one of the only specific sports management sales certification programs in the world. This is Ridpath's second stint at Ohio. He previously served as assistant wrestling coach at Ohio from 1994-95. While on legendary head coach Harry Houska's staff, the Bobcat wrestling team won the Mid American Conference wrestling championship in 1995 and finished 19th in the country. He also earned a Masters of Sports Administration and Facility Management degree from Ohio in 1995.

Prior to returning to Ohio University, Ridpath spent two years directing the graduate sports administration program at Mississippi State University placing graduates in positions within the MSU athletic department, the Southeastern Conference (SEC), NASCAR, and minor league baseball. Prior to MSU, he spent over a decade working in intercollegiate athletic administration and higher education including seven years at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where he served as an Adjunct Professor of Sport Management and Marketing, Director of Judicial Programs and Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and Student Services.

He also worked in the athletic department at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, for three years from 1995-1997 as Assistant Director of Marketing and Promotions, Game and Event Management Coordinator, Director of Internal Operations, and Director of Compliance. While at Weber State he served as a media manager at the 1997 NCAA Men's Basketball Western Regional in Salt Lake City and as Co-director of the Mid-American Conference Wrestling Tournament in 1996. As an undergraduate student at Colorado State University, he was a 1990 Distinguished Military Graduate in Army ROTC and spent over 12 years on active duty and in the Army National Guard, including two overseas tours in Germany. He is also a certified college and international wrestling official.

Ridpath received a Doctor of Education in Higher Education Administration from West Virginia University in May 2002. His primary research line is issues and problems in intercollegiate athletics with a focus on academic integrity and governance reform. An accomplished scholar, he has over 30 national and international refereed presentations and eight peer reviewed academic articles in print, two published academic book chapters, and has had writings and editorials featured in the NCAA News, Sports Business Journal, Legal Issues in College Athletics, and will be releasing a book entitled Tainted Glory: Marshall University, The NCAA, and One Man’s Fight for Justice in late 2010. Dr. Ridpath has been retained several times as an expert in litigation involving college sports issues and is regularly interviewed on relevant issues in college sports within the media to include ESPN Outside the Lines, The Paul Finebaum Radio Show, and WATH Sports Radio. Dr Ridpath has also been quoted and featured in several publications discussing issues in college athletics including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Toronto Globe and Mail, USA Today, Indianapolis Star, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Birmingham News, to name a few. Dr. Ridpath can be reached at ridpath@ohio.edu