Grad Student Transfers

by **jessexy** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:33 am

I hate to open this debate again, but the NCAA has changed a rule this year that allows graduate students to transfer to different schools without losing their eligibility or sitting out one year. It has happened at least three times in major college programs this year, affecting the likes of Cal, Arizona, Florida, Duke, and Utah football programs.

Here is an article with a few details.

http://www.aggiesports.com/stories/081806/football_20060818053.php

does this potentially change some things for the MDIA now?

**Sponsor**

by **John Paul** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:13 pm

Unfortunately no. Our Board of Directors voted on this issue again last weekend at the meetings, and the proposal to allow grad students to play for a school other than where they attended undergraduate school (which I support) failed to pass by one vote.

The NCAA didn't change the rule. That's always been the rule for them. There was a proposal this year to force grad students to sit a year if they switched schools from where they attended undergrad, and the NCAA voted not to make that change.

by **sohotrightnow** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:16 pm

Why does this vote not pass? Don't understand it at all. Do the BOD realize that unless you are Einstein, it is pretty hard to get into grad schools. Speaking locally, your shot of getting into grad school at Stanford or Berkeley if you attended there for UG is slim to none.

by **WCLLPREZ** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:33 pm

I believe the reason this doesn't pass is that it would present some schools with a distinct advantage. For instance, a school like Michigan or Stanford would have a much greater grad school population than the likes of Sonoma State or Santa Clara and thus put the smaller school at a competitive disadvantage.

Just my $.02!

by **sohotrightnow** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:44 pm

I hear what you are saying. The advantage you are referring to is this I believe: Some player from Princeton, Harvard, etc. played 3 years at said school and decides to go to grad school on the west coast...fair enough. Now, has the BOD examined the statistics to see how many times this has occurred? Do these players deciding to head west even know there are lacrosse teams at these schools? I hate to rag on the intelligence of lacrosse players because they perform better in the classroom than most collegiate sports teams, but I think it's safe to say that most D1 players are not going to split the atom any time soon, thus the occurrence of these players inflitrating the likes of Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan etc. are rare. It's not as if they just hand out admissions spots to people for grad school just because you attended an Ivy League school and played lacrosse. In addition, don't you think that grad school is time-consuming, and they may not even have time to play? You can talk about competitive disadvantages on the grad school level, but they presently exist at the undergraduate level as well.

I see the reluctance of some schools to approve this, but I think the BOD should really examine how many of these D1, D2, D3 players actually pursue grad school before shutting out players in the MDIA.

by **cjwilhelmi** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:51 pm

On top of that, I really dont see myself taking 12 hours of graduate credit in order to play lacrosse for one more year. I dont see many others doing that either.

by **Campbell** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:57 pm

You can also have a high school player that may have the option to play D1 lacrosse yet chose to attend an MDIA school due to academics. I'm sure this happens, but not sure how often. I had a guy call me last year about playing at Texas State. He was looking to go to grad school there and had played at Syracuse. He said he had two years of eligibility left and wanted to continue playing. Although this guy may have stood out in the conference, I dont think he would have had an overwhelming affect on the competitiveness of the league. In fact, we see more and more players leaving NCAA programs to attend MDIA colleges. I don't really understand the rule in the MDIA with regard to grad students, especially since the talent in the MDIA seems to get better and better each year. So, I don't think it would effect the overall competitiveness of the league, when talented players are already trickling into the league legally.

by **Dulax31** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:49 pm

I dont understand why our league has to be so strict on certain things. No matter what you dress our league up to be, quite frankly it is still "club". I understand and support the rules where if you played NCAA lax it counts towards your eligibilty and you have 6 years to play 4, but other then that, kids should get 4 years of eligibilty in our league. We should be supporting participation in our league, not hindering it. Heck there are teams that we play that only have 14 guys on their sidelines, lets not handcuff teams!

Thats my 2 cents....

by **LaxRef** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:07 pm

Dulax31 wrote:I dont understand why our league has to be so strict on certain things. No matter what you dress our league up to be, quite frankly it is still "club". I understand and support the rules where if you played NCAA lax it counts towards your eligibilty and you have 6 years to play 4, but other then that, kids should get 4 years of eligibilty in our league. We should be supporting participation in our league, not hindering it. Heck there are teams that we play that only have 14 guys on their sidelines, lets not handcuff teams!

Thats my 2 cents....

I agree with you. However, as a practical matter, often the people who sit in the room and vote on these things are not concerned with what is "right" or "fair" in a general sense, but instead are worried about what is going to help or hurt their team. I'm not saying that is what is going on in the MDIA—I have no first-hand knowledge of the motivations at work—simply that I have often observed this sort of thing in other places.

For example, I used to coach a high school sport that is basically an individual sport but for which there was a team competition as well. The team competition at the state tournament level used a scoring system that was adopted from a national system and had been used for many years; it had the bonus of making a certain amount of sense in terms of what it accomplished. One year, several weeks before the state tournament, another coach tried to force through a proposal to change the scoring system. She couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation, other than that she thought her system was "more fair." When pressed to provide examples that showed how the old scoring system failed and her new system worked, she couldn't. The only way any of it made sense is if she somehow realized that a different scoring system would give her team a better chance of winning.

So, this grad school rule may be just that: representatives from teams that would not benefit from allowing grad transfers may be worried that they're championship hopes will be hurt by such a rule and therefore vote against it. But it's funny to me how much weight a small change can have in people's minds when things that are much more significant, like location and enrollment size, are ignored because they're given and accepted.

by **Sonny** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:15 pm

Dulax31 wrote:We should be supporting participation in our league, not hindering it. Heck there are teams that we play that only have 14 guys on their sidelines, lets not handcuff teams!

The flip side of that argument is that there are plenty of teams fielding rosters of 25 - 35 - 45 (or more) players. And a graduate student is taking a spot on the roster and/or the playing field of an undergradate player. Many programs have to limit roster size due to school limitations or travel restrictions.

by **LaxRef** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:51 pm

Sonny wrote:
Dulax31 wrote:We should be supporting participation in our league, not hindering it. Heck there are teams that we play that only have 14 guys on their sidelines, lets not handcuff teams!

The flip side of that argument is that there are plenty of teams fielding rosters of 25 - 35 - 45 (or more) players. And a graduate student is taking a spot on the roster and/or the playing field of an undergradate player. Many programs have to limit roster size due to school limitations or travel restrictions.

Well, there are clearly many schools for which the hypothetical grad student would not be taking a roster spot away from an undergraduate, and for those teams where he does take a roster spot away, it's likely only for one season.

The bottom line is that allowing the grad student to play can in no way decrease overall participation, and it can clearly increase overall participation. And I don't think the undergrad has inherently more of a right to that roster spot than the grad student. I mean, what about the guy that busts his butt on the lacrosse field and in the classroom and graduates from school in 3 years, then gets into a fine graduate school elsewhere. Does it make sense to punish that kid by not allowing him to play club lacrosse any longer just because he worked hard enough to get through school in 3 years?

I think a bigger problem is seen with people who are just taking enough credits to stay eligible so they can play lacrosse.

by **Sonny** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:56 pm

LaxRef wrote: Well, there are clearly many schools for which the hypothetical grad student would not be taking a roster spot away from an undergraduate, and for those teams where he does take a roster spot away, it's likely only for one season.

And there are plenty of schools where grad students WOULD be taking away a spot (or spots) away from undergraduate students on the roster or on the field. For every school that is struggling to field 10 - 12 - 15 guys, there are plenty of teams with 30, 40, 50 man rosters.

by **LaxRef** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:48 pm

Sonny wrote:
LaxRef wrote: Well, there are clearly many schools for which the hypothetical grad student would not be taking a roster spot away from an undergraduate, and for those teams where he does take a roster spot away, it's likely only for one season.

And there are plenty of schools where grad students WOULD be taking away a spot (or spots) away from undergraduate students on the roster or on the field. For every school that is struggling to field 10 - 12 - 15 guys, there are plenty of teams with 30, 40, 50 man rosters.

Again, I say:

And I don't think the undergrad has inherently more of a right to that roster spot than the grad student. I mean, what about the guy that busts his butt on the lacrosse field and in the classroom and graduates from school in 3 years, then gets into a fine graduate school elsewhere. Does it make sense to punish that kid by not allowing him to play club lacrosse any longer just because he worked hard enough to get through school in 3 years?

by **the lax** on Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:34 am

Let grad students play where they want to!

by **John Paul** on Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:30 am

The argument Sonny put forth seemed to be the main one that was going around the room. Like most of you on the board it seems, I couldn't disagree more with his viewpoint. Why should our Board concern itself with how teams decide to choose their rosters? If a team doesn't want to take undergrad spots with grad students, assuming they have eligible grad students available, let them make that choice. Teams would still be free to their own rosters within the rules. Some seem to think we would have a flood of grad students playing. The evidence just doesn't support this.

As for the competitive advantage argument - I've been at Michigan for 20 years. We have one of the largest, most popular graduate programs in the nation in many disciplines, full of east coast students. I have never, even once, had a grad student who played at a good Division 1 program approach me about playing for us who still had eligibility left. The few that have asked have all played four years of undergrad already. Most good D1 players play out their four years while they are undergrads. Very few leave college having only played 3 years or less. Even if they did, at the level the IA has reached, who's to say these guys would even have a major impact? One very good player on a team won't be a huge difference maker anymore.

We get appeals for this every year (which we always deny), and they are ALWAYS either grad students who played club lacrosse at an IA or other school for less than four years or grad students who didn't play at all in college (and in many cases have never played the game).

The point made about 12 credits is also correct. Assuming we keep the 12 credit rule, which I don't see us changing, how many grad students would even want to play knowing they had to take 12 credit hours when the average full-time grad student takes far fewer credits.

I continue to fight for this. It continues to get voted down. For the life of me, I can't explain why. If you feel strongly about this, charge your conference representatives to the board to change their vote. They are the guys shooting this down every year.