IME WAS — NOT THAT MANY YEARS AGO — THAT COLLEGE STUDENT-ATHLETES WHO TRANSFERRED FROM ONE SCHOOL HOW THE TRANSFER PORTAL EVOLVED It’s a fact of life in today’s college sports: Here’s how we ended up with a world in which, for many sports, the end of regular season is now followed by the transfer season. MITT: SHARON WALDRON/UNSPLASH; FOOTBALL: DERIC YU/UNSPLASH; BASKETBALL: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS; RUNNER: JADON JOHNSON The NCAA turns 17, and its new 10-point code establishes a definition of amateurism, bans freshman eligibility, bans athletes from playing pro football or for noncollegiate teams, limits varsity participation to three years, bars graduate students from play, establishes faculty control of athletics, institutes anti-betting measures and restricts transfers. The NCAA implements a one-year sit-out rule for transfers, initially due to high school recruiting practices. Eventually some conferences initiate rules requiring a two-year sit-out for student-athletes transferring to another school within the same conference. The NCAA votes to allow Division I graduates to transfer without penalty. The NCAA introduces an online transfer portal, streamlining the process and providing more transparency. 1922 1931 2006 2018 to another had to sit out a season or two before resuming their careers. And that the NCAA handed out sanctions to student-athletes and their schools for anything deemed an improper reward for athletic work or abilities. Now, looser rules regarding transfers and payments have thousands of student-athletes spreading their four- or fiveyear careers over two, three or more schools. (See timelines for more on how this developed.) It’s been a dramatic shift in the control of student-athlete movement and compensation from institutions to athletes. Fans accustomed to rooting for — and following the development of — student-athletes over four years bemoan this new world order, but some alumni student- athletes who spent their entire careers at Oregon State University give a more nuanced view. “I feel like the pendulum may have swung too far, like anything,” said Mark Radford, ’85, a key figure on OSU’s “Orange Express” men’s basketball teams of the early 1980s. “But I always felt it was unequitable and unfair when we played. It was a long time coming.” And some former Beaver athletes who were at OSU from start to finish say there are situations that warrant transfering: a coaching change, a switch in academic focus, wanting to be closer to home, finding that the academics or coaching styles TARRAH BEYSTER OSU SOFTBALL, 1997-2000 34
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