Colorado State coach Tom Hilbert recalls being contacted by a club coach about a player that was a prime candidate to transfer schools. The catch: she hadn’t stepped foot yet on campus at the college that had given her a scholarship.

"She’s going to be unhappy there and probably is going to be transferring next year," Hilbert was told.

Hilbert wanted no part of that situation or speculation and, as it turned out, the messenger was wrong. The student-athlete remains at her original school of choice.

That occurrence, in Hilbert’s mind, illustrates part of the problem with the NCAA rule that allows Division I volleyball players to transfer schools and maintain eligibility using the one-time academic residence exception. It’s a much more liberal policy than the mandated one-year period of ineligibility for transfers in football, basketball, baseball and men’s hockey.

"There’s a mentality if it doesn’t work out then I can just go somewhere else and no big deal,” said Nebraska coach John Cook.

The subject has been debated among NCAA volleyball coaches for years. Now the Mountain West Conference, at Hilbert’s advocacy, is making a proposal to change the rule. The NCAA’s Legislative Council will review the proposal at the NCAA convention in January.

Neither Hilbert nor fellow Mountain West coach Beth Launiere at the University of Utah is confident the proposal will be approved by the NCAA’s primary legislative body, which is composed of athletics administrators from 31 conferences. Sixty percent of the coaches polled by the American Volleyball Coaches Association last spring favored keeping the current transfer rule in place.

"We’re interested in looking for some discussion points and more viewpoints on it to continue to try to get a pulse on the issue,” said Launiere, who is also president of the AVCA. "It comes up almost every year and I think it will continue to come up whether this goes through or not."

Coaches favor the current rule because they contend student-athletes are making their college choices at such a young age now that they deserve a second chance without penalty if it doesn’t work out. One underlying reason is it allows coaches to move players off their rosters with the lure of immediate eligibility at their school.

Coaches supporting a rule change think it will lead to more conscientious decisions by student-athletes, diminish the role of influential outside sources brokering deals for unhappy individuals and decrease the likelihood of lower-profile programs being raided by powerhouses.

"The whole free agency issue has trickled down from pro sports into college sports,” said San Diego State assistant coach Burt Fuller. “And because of the rules being what they are in volleyball it allows kids to at least have those options."

The trend started a few years ago when top-tier players began making their college choices as high school underclassmen even though the commitment does not become binding until a national letter of intent is signed in November of their senior year.

"Now you go to a tournament and you’re lucky to find a talented 11th-grader that hasn’t been committed,” Fuller said. “So with that, kids don’t get a chance to make official visits; they have to take unofficial visits at their own expense. And in many cases they can’t really look at different places in the country."

"We feel like we’re behind in 2011 because we don’t have any commitments and there are schools that have three, four commitments," Cook said. "All college coaches are frustrated with the early recruiting − there’s just nothing you can do about it."

Cook does have a head start for 2012 as ninth-grade identical twins Amber and Kadie Rolfzen of the Omaha area made a verbal commitment in June prior to turning 15.

"They’re LeBron Jameses of volleyball,” Cook said. “Those kids came and said, ‘Hey, we want to come to Nebraska, what do we have to do?"
With early commitments here to stay, Minnesota coach Mike Hebert said the transfer rule foremost should accommodate the student-athlete.

"I’ve always felt that the NCAA rule structure places an awful lot of faith and trust in the ability of 16-year-olds to figure all this out," Hebert said. "I just don’t think that’s a reliable standard."

NCAA rules state that players planning to transfer are required to have a permission-to-contact letter sent from their current school to prospective schools before making contact. In practice, circumventing the system is rampant.

"Unhappy players will contact usually a club coach or some representative who will shop for them,” Hilbert said. “That to me is not really the aboveboard way to do it. I think sometimes that shopping occurred before the coach in the first institution even knows that it’s occurred."

"It’s a different recruiting pool now when people can recruit other (teams’) players," said Penn State coach Russ Rose.

Coaches can refuse to release transferring players if they suspect improprieties or have other reasons, or they can set conditions for the transfer. The player can appeal to the NCAA, but if it is denied she will be ineligible to play in matches the following season.

"The coaches get really wild in their specifications, as far as who they’re going to release a player to, and I don’t think that’s right either,” Fuller said. “Either you’ve got to release somebody or you don’t."

Perennial power Minnesota is an example of a team that bolstered its lineup through transfers. The Golden Gophers added pair of senior transfers, setter Taylor Carico (USC) and outside hitter Megan Wilson (Missouri), to go along with returning All-Big Ten selections Brook Dieter (outside hitter) and Lauren Gibbenmeyer (middle hitter).

Carico was a second-team All-American as a sophomore; Wilson finished third for the Tigers in kills last year.

Sophomore setter/defensive specialist Jess Menden also transferred from TCU, joining her hometown program as a walk-on.

"They contacted me, all three, for very different reasons," Hebert said. "It’s a highly unusual situation.”

It raises the issue of coaches taking advantage of the transfer rule for a quick fix.

"There are schools that are out there that are pretty successful that they seem to be able to cherry pick,” Fuller said. “I’m not saying that any of these schools are doing anything illegally. But there are ways to deal in the gray. When you deal in the gray you can still get players to transfer and find somebody that’s going to be of a great amount of help to you."



Nebraska’s Sydney Anderson. Photo by Scott Bruhn/Nebraska Athletics.

Hilbert said losing transfers is particularly damaging to a program like Colorado State’s because of the number of players that redshirt.

"As a sport we’re at a level where we’re investing a lot more money in recruiting than we were even five years ago and we are recruiting a lot of kids that are taking early commitments and banking a lot on players," Hilbert said. "I think that when you make that kind of investment that player should be held a little bit more accountable than they are now."

"We’re recruiting so far out in advance now that to lose a current player hurts you for two to three to four years sometimes," Launiere said.

"Mid-major programs get some really talented players that were maybe late bloomers or for whatever reason they just weren’t found,” Fuller said. “And then those kids go for a year or two and then all of a sudden it’s like we’re the minor leagues and the majors just call them up."