I’m stunned by the volume of comments regarding Cassin Diggs’ involuntary/voluntary transfer. It’s a healthy debate. As I stated the first go-round, I’m not entirely comfortable with what went down. My discomfort largely stems from the one-way situation college athletics once an athlete signs, and what strikes me as abusing that situation.
A few basic things.
A scholarship is renewable each year at the school’s discretion. The student has no say. If a student wishes to transfer and still play a sport, it is at the school’s discretion as to whether to release him, and can restrict where he goes. This is common when there is a new coaching change and a kid doesn’t feel comfortable in the new situation. Pitt benefited from such a situation when Mike Cook left East Carolina. The trade-off is that the player has to sit out a year if he transfers to another D-1 school.
Of course, if the kid isn’t released, he can still leave and enroll elsewhere. He won’t, however, be eligible for a scholarship for a year and can’t even walk-on to the team.
At the same time a new coach can decide a kid doesn’t fit what he wants and can simply not renew the scholarship of the kid even if he wants to stay, is in good academic standing and not in any trouble. Usually this only happens when there is a coaching change. At Colorado last year, Jeff Bzdelik did just that after taking over. Technically any coach could do that any time, but it would completely trash his reputation on the recruiting trail.
A National Letter of Intent is the first document a kid signs when he accepts a scholarship to a school. It is also yet another contract that is essentially a one-way street. It binds the kid to the school — as the schools are so fond of reminding everyone. A player doesn’t have to sign an NLI, but unless you are Tyreke Evans or of similar ability, most schools won’t give a scholarship unless you sign it.
The reality, though, is that a player is recruited by the coaches. They state how they want to play for the guy when they sign. They talk about the relationships built with the coaches. Then they are bound to the school.
Once you sign, you are stuck unless the agrees to release you. Indiana made oral promises (which it kept) to the basketball recruits who signed that they would be released from their NLI if Kelvin Sampson left or was fired before the 2008 season. They were boxed in since they wanted the kids to sign in the early period of November. The Sampson Cell Phone Saga broke in October.
It’s why Bob Hurley, Sr. was agitated and advocated so hard for Tyshawn Taylor’s release from Marquette. It was the only way to look out for what was still his kid.
With all of that looking at them, is it any wonder some of the top recruits milk the publicity and have the coaches pursuing them go through so many hoops? Might as well, after they sign all leverage is lost.
With all of this, I definitely tend towards coming down on the side of the players and hate to see kids used and discarded.
This brings things back to Diggs. Pitt sought and recruited him, but when they realized that his development was not going to approach what they already had he became optional. There are no indications he failed on his academic or off-the court requirements, or was at any risk of it happening. To speculate or theorize in that direction is to try and look for an excuse to justify things. If any of that was happening, it would have been released or leaked just to counter Diggs.
It really comes down to breaking down the limited statements from both sides. It’s hard to buy Coach Dixon’s statements that the decision was amicably reached since Diggs seems anything but that about transferring.
One thing that is apparent is that playing time was an issue. He wasn’t going to get it at Pitt, and did not appear to earn it by his play. From the limited action that was seen in the games he was no where close to being good enough. McGhee showed more ability and development than Diggs. Diggs, however, seemed to feel that he was going to get more playing time when he was recruited.
I doubt he was promised it, but I also think the coaches believed and allowed him to believe he would get minutes. That while he may not start, he would have been in the rotation at Center. Perhaps allowing Biggs to be moved to power forward. Really, that was the expectation many fans had going into the season.
I also think the analogy to an academic scholarship does not hold up real well for me. Perhaps its the contract aspect keeps me from buying it. In an academic scholarship there are clearer terms set out explaining what is expected of the student (which Maz noted). In an athletic scholarship, the terms are left open and vague. There is much more discretion in the agreement that gives the school and coach all the power. That makes the oral representations made to the recruited player more important. They may not be in the terms of the contract, but they are vital in explaining to the recruit what is expected and what he can expect.
The representations are made during the recruitment. While trying to get the recruit to sign with the school. I find it highly improbable that any coach would tell a recruit that if it turns out their evaluations were wrong and he isn’t good enough to compete at the level expected he will not have his scholarship renewed for the following year.
The other problem is that an academic scholarship is completely individual. An athletic scholarship, while having strong individual components also includes a team concept. Rick Pitino did not discourage Derrick Caracter from declaring that he was going to enter the NBA Draft, but when Caracter wanted to come back, Pitino said no. There was no hue and cry over that for a reason. Caracter had been a lousy teammate. He had been disciplined and suspended multiple times in his two years there. The only reason he kept getting chances was his individual ability. Ultimately his disruptions to the team and the chemistry was more detrimental than the ability he had on the court.
The team component should be a factor. Again, Diggs did nothing to indicate he was anything but a good and supportive teammate even if he saw no action. He didn’t stir things up in the season when the coaches kept suggesting he was having major hip issues — which he now disputes over how serious. He didn’t complain about his lack of playing time publicly.
Specific to Diggs, this is not as much about his limited production and not being good enough to see much more than mop-up minutes — and therefore not living up to his end of the agreement. This is about freeing up a scholarship for someone else that Coach Dixon thinks can help the team immediately.
Because college basketball is limited in the number of scholarships — as opposed to football — there is not a lot of room for error in recruiting kids. The value of each scholarship is huge. Austin Wallace is injured through next year and holding one scholarship and is not about to be cut loose (and I don’t know if the school could with his injury). Apparently Coach Dixon felt he couldn’t have another scholarship tied up by a player who wouldn’t be a contributor for next season and as a senior wouldn’t have any potential in the future.
It stinks that JD had to release Diggs. Gas i hate your comment,…”Survival of the fittest. Dixon didn’t make the rules, he’s just playing by them.” That elistist mentality is what hurt many things in America especially when everyone knows it is wrong.
Hail to Pitt and to Jeff, Mook and all other who debating against me about Diggs.. Thank You.
I still think JD is overrated.. but I cheer for my Panther no matter what
Diggs got caught in a numbers game, let’s not mince words, he was screwed.
If Diggs had a problem with grades or had some type of character issues his release is a no brainer. If the kid did everything he was asked but did not develop on the court, well some coach made a horrible mistake by bringing him into the program.
As I have stated before, Pitt struggles recruiting big men who can walk in and play, Dixon has recruited more big guys who take 2-3 years to fully develop, it looks like Diggs fit into that category but remember he was a JC player.
Too bad Pitt let him ride the pine!
That said, the system is what it is and Dixon understands that Pitt is not paying him close to $1M a year to babysit non-performers through 4 years of school. His job rides on Pitt’s performance on the court, and he is acting accordingly.
I still wonder what is going to happen if Mike Cook is given another year. Anyone know? Is his scholarship slotted for someone already or are they holding on to it until they get word from the NCAA about the medical redshirt?
The jury is still out on Flacco IMO. Kevan Smith probably looks a lot better starting at Delaware than at Pitt. He’s got a great arm too….
I never suggested Kendall didn’t produce. I was using him — as an extreme example, which I noted — to show that in sports there is no way to quantify a player’s value to the team. Here’s a less extreme example: We read in the PG this year that Wallace is a great teammate and gets everyone pumped up. He’s never going to step on the court, but I don’t think his scholarship will be yanked (pending the severity of his injury). Oh wait, here’s a better example: Chevy once said that the toughest player he ever played against was Kendall in practice. This was at a time when Kendall was not playing regular minutes. So, it follows that a player can be of value to a team without putting up numbers — big or small — in statistical categories.
Speaking of Chevy, I did not make this point clearly, and I apologize. What I was trying to say, and I closed my argument with this, was that coach’s can mis-judge a player’s abilities both ways. When Chevy first stepped on the court for Pitt, Coach Howland wanted him to play on the wing. It didn’t work; he is a low-post player, regardless of whether or not he fits the physical model of that type of player. What would have happened, then, if Chevy had quit the team after a few games, transferred, and became a star playing on the block somewhere? Howland would have looked like a fool, and, in fact, he called himself an “idiot” for not letting Chevy play his natural position from day one. Howland initially was wrong when evaluating Chevy. It seems like Jamie was wrong in his evaluation of Diggs. Again, that’s not Diggs’ fault, and I don’t see why he should be punished. Furthermore, perhaps Jamie is still wrong. I’ll admit it’s unlikely, but there is a possibility of Coach Dixon still having a “move Chevy down low” moment with Diggs. I can hear you howling already, but anything is possible.
I never said that there is “too brief a history of athletic scholarships.” I said the environment of Division I athletics is moving at such a rapid pace that we probably won’t really be able to understand it until we look back on the time when Internet recruiting sites blew up, blogs (like this one) became popular and domain names like fireronzook.com became a part of our discussions. These things have a direct impact on the kids because the coaches are under such pressure that — as was noted earlier in an earlier post — they are going to promise the moon to every kid because they need to win. This is not the same as the ’90s, and it’s not the same as the ’80s. We can discuss the history of athletic scholarships, but this chapter is nowhere near complete.
You are correct though that there are many intangibles which are tougher to measure, things like team play. My original analogy of an academic scholarship does fail on that aspect.
There also can be political things going on that would cause some type of action like “who to cut” and “who to keep”. You may not cut a kid from a great prep school if you ever hope to recruit from there again.
There are so many aspects to this. Personally, I was only put off in the beginning that people were saying Diggs somehow got a raw deal, or that Jamie was crooked, when we don’t know what really went down.
And I doubt Jamie mis-used him. Maybe mis-evaluated him in the first place, yes. But to say that a team can’t correct a mistake would be to imply that nobody could ever be fired, dropped, cut, traded, reprimanded or anything, just because someone thought you’d do better than you actually did in the first place. If Jamie doesn’t perform, he’d be off the team as well.
At some point, when mistakes are made, it’s better to part ways. At least that’s what most of my ex-gfs tell me ;-).
Actually that’s not true. Both sports have scholly limits. Football is at 85 players. Bball I believe is 12 players.
I am a Pitt letter winner in a major sport who had a number of scholarship offers. I chose Pitt because the coaching staff and university impressed me as having character and a sincere interest in having their athletes achieve academically. At this stage of my life, this is still more important to me than success on the grid iron or on the court. A couple of posters expressed this philosophy much more eloquently than I could ever have. I am concerned when a scholarship is taken away from a young man who, apparently, is playing by the rules and is making an effort both on the court and in the classroom. It is as important to me that his scholarship be maintained as it is to discipline a star player (i.e. suspension, termination from the program, etc.) who makes a serious transgression.
Despite all the speculation and logic on this and other boards–mine included–none of us knows for certain that Diggs would have had his ship actually taken away had he refused to transfer. Personally, I like to think that he could have stayed and gotten no PT (maybe even have been excused from practicing with the team) but allowed to finish his education and graduate if that would have been acceptable to him. Would it have been? I certainly don’t know the answer. Diggs did complain publicly about not getting promised PT and of being repeatedly asked to transfer. I do know that scholarship athletes in other times and places (undoubtedly including Pitt) have stayed on ship to graduate but were excused from being on a team because they were no longer in the coach’s plans for PT. A brother of mine did that very thing at Miami of Ohio years ago and I have specific knowledge of one current instance at Pitt where that is also the case with another team. The only thing reported in the press was that Diggs was unhappy that he was asked to transfer and told he wasn’t in the coach’s plans to see any of the PT he believed he was promised when recruited. It was never explicitly stated anywhere in anything I read that his ship would have actually been taken away if he refused to transfer. If I would hear of a ship actually taken away, I would be among the first to write a nasty gram to the Chancellor and Athletic director and threaten to discontinue my support of the University. IMO, the right thing to do is to let any kid in good academic and behavioral standing stay on their athletic ship to graduate if that is what they want to do while fully accepting that their playing career is over. Irrespective of the NCAA rule that says ships are granted only for 1 year at a time, a kid who does all that is asked of him should not be made to pay for a coach’s recruiting mis-judgment of his talent or potential as an athlete.
The spring/summer is a fluid time for player movement…the staff continues to recruit players for this class, so there may be other changes to the team. If the team only has 11 players on scholarship when the fall semester starts, should we complain about the staff not doing their jobs?
