When I was in high school, I wrote for my high school newspaper, starting as a sports reporter and working my way up to being sports editor my senior year.
(Stop laughing. Yes I was a nerd, but it got me here, and you're reading this, aren't you?)
The young lady who served as the editor of my the Smoke Signals Newspaper was named Annie. She was not only a dear friend of mine, but an incredibly impressive young woman. I was convinced she was going to be the first female President of the United States, and if she was to suddenly show up on the national political radar, it wouldn't even be a partial surprise to me, with the exception of the fact that it took so long.
Annie, her 4.0 GPA and a litany of AP and Honors classes dotting her high school transcript, could've gone anywhere in the country she wanted for college. She had scholarship offers galore to prestigious universities and colleges across the country.
Annie, who grew up a fan of a large school out west, decided to attend another in the Midwest, for one reason and one reason alone: Annie wanted to become a great journalist, and the university she elected to attend had one of the best journalism schools in the country. She didn't have a deep connection to the school - they just provided her the best possible resource to accomplish her goals.
After three years, Annie decided that she wanted not just to be a journalist, but in an effort to make the world better, wanted to study business as well, in order to report on financial news, specifically, financial crime in large industry.
In her drive to chase her goal, Annie transferred to another school - again, not one she or her family were a fan of, but one that had a good journalism school and a good business school, allowing her to double major in the career she wanted to chase and the subject she wanted to learn about.
Now, reading that story, are you mad at Annie? Do you think she made a mistake? Did she display a lack of loyalty or dedication to the school or the educators who worked to teach her at the first school?
I've told this story to scores of people over the years, and as far as I know, none of them held anything against her for her decision. In fact, most of them believed what she did was the most intelligent course of action to accomplish the things she wanted to accomplish in her career, in her life.
So, if you didn't get mad at that story, but you're upset with college football players entering the transfer portal, let's do a little experiment.
Instead of Annie, let's make our subject "Johnny Player," a QB from Random State University.
Instead of wanting to become a journalist, Johnny Player wants to reach the NFL.
Instead of attending Random State U because of their journalism school, he attended because they had a head coach who was known for sending QB's to the league.
Instead of transferring to another school because he wanted to learn business and journalism, he transferred because the coach he wanted to learn from left, and now University of Random has a QB coach who's known for his ability to retool a QB's mechanics.
It's exactly the same story. He went to RSU because that school had the resources he believed gave him the best chance to accomplish his goals. He was willing to trade his time, energy, effort, and play to utilize those resources on the path to his objectives. Once those resources were no longer available, and the resources at U of R were more attractive, he went there instead.
So, Mr. or Mrs. Anti-Transfer-Portal, let me ask this question: why are these kids not allowed to have their own goals and objectives? And why are they, unlike Annie, not allowed to take their services to another institution they believe will provide better resources to reach those goals and objectives? Annie paid her dues in tuition money and scholarships. Johnny Player paid his in athletics, representing the university. Both received the use of school resources in return.
So why is Annie an intelligent, driven student, while Johnny is a traitor?
Because I love analogies, let's do another one.
If a chef has a desire to become the best pastry chef in the world and takes a job at a restaurant because the head chef at the restaurant is renown as one of the greatest pastry chefs in the state, and after a year that master chef takes off to another restaurant, are you going to be angry at the sous chef for deciding to also leave the restaurant? That chef wants to be a great pastry chef. That restaurant was able to provide an incredible resource, the head chef, for him to learn from. When the master chef left, the resource that best helped him accomplish his goal left as well, and the restaurant was then unable to provide that resource, plateauing the growth of the sous chef.
Are you mad at him for leaving? Is he disloyal? Does he show a lack of dedication or desire?
If not, why have you decided that college athletes are the one group of people who you not only don't celebrate, but actively campaign against, using resources provided to them and moving on if those resources are changed?
Coaches, schools, football programs; they're all resources. And in return for the use of those resources, college football players trade what they can provide; work, time, effort, and play on the field.
When a player decides that a school is unable to provide the resources that would help him accomplish his or her goals, and no longer wishes to provide his services to that school and opt for another school that does, why is he or she the exception to how you feel about everyone else?
Of course we want kids to learn loyalty, dedication, drive, perseverance. We want them to learn about working through adversity to accomplish goals.
But we also want them to learn that in the real world, futility is something to avoid. Making sure that you set yourself up for success is important.
If you're anti-portal, you might feel like you have justifiable reasons. And hey, you might actually have justifiable reasons.
But you not liking that kids can take their talents to somewhere they feel will provide them with a better opportunity for success is not a good reason not to let them.
So, with all due respect: you're just going to have to get over it.
