Randy Smith: Freshmen Ineligibility Rule Looming

  • Wednesday, March 4, 2015
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith

Since 1972, freshmen athletes have been eligible to play in all NCAA Division I sporting events. The rule first changed in 1968 when freshmen were allowed to play all sports except football and basketball. 1972 was the year the NCAA finally did away with the University and college divisions. I was in college at MTSU when the rule changed for good in 1972, and at the time, I was totally against freshmen being allowed to play with the "older, more mature" student athletes.

I was in my first of three seasons on the Blue Raider Sports Network with the late, legendary Monte Hale, and the Blue Raiders had a really good looking freshman from Kokomo, Indiana named Tim Sisneros. Even though Sisneros was every bit a mature young man standing 6'-8" and weighing in at around 230 pounds, he was still just out of high school. And to further strengthen my point about freshmen maturity, Sisneros had played just one year of high school basketball.

I was of the belief that a red shirt year on the bench watching senior center Chester Brown play would benefit Tim Sisneros greatly. Man was I ever wrong. The first time I ever saw the "Kokomo Krusher" play was in the Raiders first home game of the year against Vanderbilt to dedicate the sparkling new Murphy Center. Sisneros went up against Vandy's 7-'4" center Steve Turner and more than held his own. He even blocked a shot or two as Vandy came away with a twelve point win, but he made a real statement that night; a statement that said he was ready to play D-I college basketball as a true freshman. The late Tim Sisneros would start four years at Middle Tennessee and in his senior season would be named the OVC Player of the Year.

The reason that I'm talking about freshmen eligibility today is there is a movement in the wind regarding freshmen rules changing once again in 2016. That's the year  that has been proposed to  begin a "year of readiness" for incoming freshmen athletes to help them adjust to a college academic workload as well as to allow their bodies to mature an extra year before throwing them in the fire. In a much more simple way to describe what is in the works....it can be called the "Calipari" rule. As in Kentucky Coach John Calipari who has made a nice living with one and done players in the Bluegrass state. If this rule which by the way is being pushed by the Big Ten and commissioner Jim Delaney is passed, Calipari will then have to change his total recruiting philosophy. Calipari himself wants to change the "one and done" situation, but I doubt he wants anything as drastic as freshmen ineligibility. 

You Wildcat fans really don't have anything to worry about. I doubt very seriously any conference in the country would weigh its teams down with the competitive disadvantage of facing teams with talented true freshmen in the lineup. It really looks good every few years or so to pound the speaker's circuit with ideas of being much tougher academically, then sitting back and counting your millions of dollars in revenue. In other words, those ideas put up a really good front. Can you imagine telling Johnny Manziel a couple of years ago that he wouldn't be able to play as a true freshman at Texas A&M; the year that "Johnny Football" won the Heisman Trophy? Or telling Jameis Winston he was ineligible to play for Florida State until he became a sophomore?

Call it what you will....a year of readiness for freshman athletes; one that will help them academically or the "Calipari" rule. Either way I don't see it happening in 2016 or anytime at all. It just doesn't make sense.      

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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.

His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.

He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.

In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.

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