MORGANTOWN — Thirty-some years ago, Bob Huggins would sit down in the living room of a potential recruit, and with honesty and a straight face, he would tell the family of that recruit that their son would be taken care of.
That’s what every college coach said, and you may think of that as some type of recruiting spiel, but there’s a good chance a heavy majority of coaches back then meant every word.
And I believe most of them, including Huggins, went out of their way in doing their absolute best to keep their word to every young man that enrolled at the school he worked for.
Keep that frame of mind for a second, as we now fast forward to 2022, where college athletes are making more business decisions by the day than are ever made in the boardrooms at Apple or Microsoft.
Those decisions are generally laid out in a social media post that includes the now all too common phrases such as, “After sitting down with my family,” or “After much praying and consideration.”
The next line is always the same: “I have decided to enter the transfer portal.”
To be fair, I have no ill will toward the thousands of athletes in the portal, in any sport.
I believe they deserve that right. After hundreds of examples in the years before the portal opened that saw coaches pick up and leave without a moment’s notice or coaches going out of their way to block certain schools a kid could transfer to or schools not approving a transfer altogether — forcing athletes to either stay or pay their way at the next school — these kids deserve the freedom now found in the portal and the transfer rules.
The tricky part is that isn’t the end of the story, not by a long shot.
And that’s the part that may not be understood by the athlete.
As the portal numbers continue to climb year after year and the freedom to transfer continues to be abused, all college athletes — and not just the ones in the portal — better come to terms rather quickly that the coaches, too, are realizing how times have changed and have got to start making business decisions of their own.
This is where we go back to those living-room conversations that were a staple of recruiting since before most of us were even born.
That moment is not exactly dead, but there’s no way a coach in today’s world of college athletics can spit out those same words said so many years ago and do it with 100% honesty.
Not when statistics say nearly half of all incoming freshmen will transfer to another school after their first or second year.
You can’t ignore those stats. They can no longer be passed off with a roll of the eyes or simple disbelief.
The day of bringing in a high school senior and developing them for four years is over, finished. Does it still happen? Sure it does, but those instances have now become the exception rather than the rule.
Huggins knows this. Every single coach in the Big 12 knows it. Every single coach in college athletics knows it.
And so we’ve come to an age of college sports where it’s extremely fair for coaches to make business decisions based on the program’s best interests rather than kids’ best interests.
That may send up all sorts of red flags for some, especially to those of us who remember a kinder era of college athletics that weren’t so dependent on TV contracts, mega-conferences and the almighty dollar.
We go back to Huggins, who announced the signing of forward Tre Mitchell on Friday. That puts WVU at 14 scholarship players when the NCAA limit is 13.
The short — and harsh — explanation is someone has to go. There is chatter out there Huggins and his staff may soon add another transfer, which would mean two young men will have to go in order to fit inside the NCAA’s limit.
That could be one or two athletes who have signed to play at WVU, but have yet to do so. It could mean something else.
This isn’t to suggest Huggins is just going to start kicking guys off the team. Generally these things have a way of working themselves out, either through academic casualties or by asking an incoming recruit to delay their enrollment by going to prep school for a year or by simply being honest with a kid about his playing time and saying there may be better opportunity out there.
None of that sounds great, honestly, especially if we’re talking about an 18-year old kid who thought he had life figured out one day and then it all changes the next.
It also didn’t sound great, though, when Jalen Bridges, Sean McNeil and Isaiah Cottrell all made business decisions of their own to pack up and transfer.
This is where we get to the heart of the business of college athletics now.
Huggins needs to win. His team finished dead last in the Big 12 last season. The Mountaineers finished 15-21 just four years ago.
At WVU, in truth, it reaches far past Huggins. Neal Brown needs to win in football. Dawn Plitzuweit would like to make a good first impression in women’s basketball.
All coaches need to win for various reasons, and if there is one or two or three players still out there in the portal Huggins could sign to help his team win, should he not have the right to do so?
That answer is, of course, a strong yes, but there are consequences that come along with that decision, consequences that may seem a bit unfair to some.
Just like there are consequences when a young athlete decides to transfer to find a greener pasture, a more likable coach, a better NIL deal or a better path to a pro career.
It’s all business decisions being made now. When the athletes make them, there is frustration and disappointment usually followed by some type of understanding in thinking, “That’s just how things are now.”
As college coaches begin to make their own business decisions, it’s due time we move past fair and unfair.
It’s time college athletes realize that business decisions aren’t just a one-way street, and what may have been deemed unfair years ago is now fair game.
After all, it’s just good business.
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