Pandora's Box is Wide Open

 In collegiate sport in the USA, a couple of relatively new situations are causing tremendous upheaval in the way competitors and coaches interact with their institutions. The NCAA Transfer Portal is a mechanism where players who presently attend a college or university and represent that institution in a sport, can make themselves available to other institutions to offer them an opportunity to join their team/institution, without penalty, once in their college sporting careers. Formerly, a player could leave his or her college and move down a level (e.g. Division I to Division II) and would be eligible to play immediately. However, if one moved up a level or made a lateral move, he or she would have to sit out a year before competing. This was ostensibly to keep the more powerful institutions from poaching players from those less fortunate. Now, all bets are off. Free agency, like in professional sport, has been handed to those in collegiate sport.

 The other factor reshaping the collegiate sporting landscape is Name Image, and Likeness (NIL) money. Formerly, collegiate players were forbidden to profit financially from their name, image, or likeness in product endorsement deals, or in any other way. Amateurism was strictly guarded, though it was generally acknowledged that many players or their families and handlers were paid “under the table” in the process of recruiting. Now NIL has been embraced, Pandora’s box has been opened, and no one knows the breadth of the unintended consequences that will now unfold. Amateurism has been kicked to the curb, and college sport is essentially a developmental level of professional sport.

 Both of these factors are stressing coaches and administrations in many ways. Most have no idea how to handle either, and many are choosing to leave their sport, throwing up their hands in frustration or disgust. Both of these factors have tremendous potential for good and for harm. They both present powerful challenges to matters like team cohesion, coach-player relationships, and relationships between coaches and players’ families. It also presents new challenges to character coaches and sports chaplains.

 Below is a set of questions I have crafted for character coaches and sports chaplains to use in discussing either of these matters with players considering entering the transfer portal or being offered NIL money. Outside the USA, these could also be applicable to players in developmental levels of sport in similar situations. I hope they are of value to you. Please reply with your suggestions for edits, deletions, or additional questions. Thank you.

 Have  you thought about how this decision will affect your development as a player?

• Have you considered how this will affect your academic progress toward a university degree?
• Let’s suppose you enter the transfer portal but no one signs you to join their team, what will you do then?
• Have you thought about how this decision will affect your teammates and coaches?
• What or who are the strongest factors in leading you to make this decision? Are you sure they are really in your best interest?