What it is and what it isn’t...
It has drawn the attention of the media and fans, who wonder: Why was it created? How does it work? Is it really a form of free agency that allows student-athletes to move from campus to campus?
The passion that people have for intercollegiate athletics plays a role in perpetuating these questions. During the downtime between seasons, additions or subtractions to a team’s roster always have drawn interest. But with the advent of the Transfer Portal, interest in the process behind approving transfers has intensified — partly because the idea of a new digital tool for managing it is intriguing, and partly because the media and the public don’t have access to the portal.
The Transfer Portal was created as a compliance tool to systematically manage the transfer process from start to finish, add more transparency to the process among schools and empower student-athletes to make known their desire to consider other programs.
The digital tools of athletics compliance aren’t often intriguing to fans and the media. Yet news of student-athletes entering their names in the portal appears on the tickers at the bottom of the screen on sports networks, and chatter about the portal fills hours on talk shows and provides fodder for opinion pieces.
Perceptions abound, but the actuality is that it was born with some simple goals in mind.
WHAT IT IS
The Transfer Portal organizes a complicated process.
If there is one group that benefits the most from the creation of the portal, it is compliance administrators.
Since each transfer can bring different challenges, it’s hard for compliance administrators to say exactly the amount of time the portal saves them. But the consensus is that tasks that previously could have taken hours, days or weeks are simply going away. The process now can be started in minutes.
“This is probably the best use of technology that I’ve seen in a long while,” says Dede Allen, associate director for compliance and academics at Alaska Anchorage. “Everybody who needs access to the information can get it. When a student-athlete wants to transfer, you are trying to help them, and the last thing you want to do is impede the process.”
Allen is in a special situation because her school competes in Division I in men’s ice hockey but Division II for the rest of its sports. Because the portal is optional in Division II, some schools may not place their athletes in the central repository.
That can lead to some frustration, but it is all part of the growing process of an entity that just reached its first anniversary.
“If the other DII school does not use the portal, then using the old-school method of typing up a transfer tracer is used,” says Margie Sullivan, assistant athletics director for compliance at Rollins. “All Sunshine State Conference compliance staff use the portal except for those situations where the student-athlete is transferring from a two-year institution or a non-NCAA institution.”
Sean McAndrews, associate athletics director for compliance and game administration at West Virginia State, added: “The Transfer Portal helps save me time for the compliance part of my job. Like most administrators in Division II, I have other duties, such as sports information and facilities responsibilities.”
The real-time aspect of the portal is another feature that stands out to compliance administrators. Those with access to the portal can run reports on data such as how many student-athletes in a specific sport, school or conference actively are looking to transfer.
The portal also helps the NCAA research staff collect transfer data since it is all in one place, and staffers don’t have to rely on individual schools or conferences to certify the movement of student-athletes.
Data collected can help NCAA members analyze how the transfer process is working with an eye toward making appropriate changes in the future.
Division I went to a notification-of-transfer model for the 2018-19 academic year.
The student-athlete is empowered by the change to the bylaw. Once student-athletes ask that a compliance administrator place their name in the portal, the school has two business days to submit the information.
It is up to the individual school to develop policies regarding portal requests.
The downside for student-athletes is that their current school can reduce or stop giving them athletics aid at the end of the term in which the request was made to enter the Transfer Portal.
“Anyone who comes to me, the first question I ask is: Have you talked to your family?” says Steve Corder, assistant athletics director for compliance at Detroit Mercy. “A lot of times kids want to leave on scholarship, and their parents may not understand why they are willing to give that up. There may be a conversation that needs to be had about how will college be paid for if another scholarship opportunity doesn’t arise.”
If student-athletes withdraw from the portal, the original school can return them to the roster and restore athletics aid if it chooses.
“The schools put a lot of resources and hours into the recruiting process,” says Lisa Archbald, associate commissioner for compliance and governance and senior woman administrator of the Northeast Conference. “The membership wanted there to be some accountability for the student-athletes.”
Previously in Division I, when student-athletes wanted to transfer, they had to ask their coach for permission to contact other schools. If the coach denied the request, student-athletes could make their case to the athletics director.
If permission was still denied, student-athletes could make the request to a designated campus administrator, such as a dean of students. If the request still wasn’t approved, the final step would be to appeal to a committee that consists of professionals on campus and other students.
Those who didn’t receive permission still could transfer but couldn’t be offered athletics aid at the new school.
Once student-athletes identified schools where they would explore attending, the compliance administrator had to send correspondence to each of the schools. Those schools would send back a transfer tracer that had to be filled out by hand.
Since there was no uniform way for schools to put together transfer tracers, they could vary in the questions asked and the length of the form that needed to be filled out. For example, if a student-athlete wanted to explore transferring to 10 schools, the compliance administrator at the current school would have to fill out 10 tracers, which were either faxed or scanned to email back and forth between the athletics departments.
Depending on workload, a compliance administrator couldn’t know for sure when the other school would reply.
“There were enormous inefficiencies in the previous way we had to do this,” says Carrie Doyle, senior associate athletics director for compliance at NC State. “I’ve always been a person who appreciates a good system and a good process. From a 100,000-foot perspective, the Transfer Portal is a smart thing to do.”
It has drawn the attention of the media and fans, who wonder: Why was it created? How does it work? Is it really a form of free agency that allows student-athletes to move from campus to campus?
The passion that people have for intercollegiate athletics plays a role in perpetuating these questions. During the downtime between seasons, additions or subtractions to a team’s roster always have drawn interest. But with the advent of the Transfer Portal, interest in the process behind approving transfers has intensified — partly because the idea of a new digital tool for managing it is intriguing, and partly because the media and the public don’t have access to the portal.
The Transfer Portal was created as a compliance tool to systematically manage the transfer process from start to finish, add more transparency to the process among schools and empower student-athletes to make known their desire to consider other programs.
The digital tools of athletics compliance aren’t often intriguing to fans and the media. Yet news of student-athletes entering their names in the portal appears on the tickers at the bottom of the screen on sports networks, and chatter about the portal fills hours on talk shows and provides fodder for opinion pieces.
Perceptions abound, but the actuality is that it was born with some simple goals in mind.
WHAT IT IS
The Transfer Portal organizes a complicated process.
If there is one group that benefits the most from the creation of the portal, it is compliance administrators.
Since each transfer can bring different challenges, it’s hard for compliance administrators to say exactly the amount of time the portal saves them. But the consensus is that tasks that previously could have taken hours, days or weeks are simply going away. The process now can be started in minutes.
“This is probably the best use of technology that I’ve seen in a long while,” says Dede Allen, associate director for compliance and academics at Alaska Anchorage. “Everybody who needs access to the information can get it. When a student-athlete wants to transfer, you are trying to help them, and the last thing you want to do is impede the process.”
Allen is in a special situation because her school competes in Division I in men’s ice hockey but Division II for the rest of its sports. Because the portal is optional in Division II, some schools may not place their athletes in the central repository.
That can lead to some frustration, but it is all part of the growing process of an entity that just reached its first anniversary.
“If the other DII school does not use the portal, then using the old-school method of typing up a transfer tracer is used,” says Margie Sullivan, assistant athletics director for compliance at Rollins. “All Sunshine State Conference compliance staff use the portal except for those situations where the student-athlete is transferring from a two-year institution or a non-NCAA institution.”
Sean McAndrews, associate athletics director for compliance and game administration at West Virginia State, added: “The Transfer Portal helps save me time for the compliance part of my job. Like most administrators in Division II, I have other duties, such as sports information and facilities responsibilities.”
The real-time aspect of the portal is another feature that stands out to compliance administrators. Those with access to the portal can run reports on data such as how many student-athletes in a specific sport, school or conference actively are looking to transfer.
The portal also helps the NCAA research staff collect transfer data since it is all in one place, and staffers don’t have to rely on individual schools or conferences to certify the movement of student-athletes.
Data collected can help NCAA members analyze how the transfer process is working with an eye toward making appropriate changes in the future.
Division I went to a notification-of-transfer model for the 2018-19 academic year.
The student-athlete is empowered by the change to the bylaw. Once student-athletes ask that a compliance administrator place their name in the portal, the school has two business days to submit the information.
It is up to the individual school to develop policies regarding portal requests.
The downside for student-athletes is that their current school can reduce or stop giving them athletics aid at the end of the term in which the request was made to enter the Transfer Portal.
“Anyone who comes to me, the first question I ask is: Have you talked to your family?” says Steve Corder, assistant athletics director for compliance at Detroit Mercy. “A lot of times kids want to leave on scholarship, and their parents may not understand why they are willing to give that up. There may be a conversation that needs to be had about how will college be paid for if another scholarship opportunity doesn’t arise.”
If student-athletes withdraw from the portal, the original school can return them to the roster and restore athletics aid if it chooses.
“The schools put a lot of resources and hours into the recruiting process,” says Lisa Archbald, associate commissioner for compliance and governance and senior woman administrator of the Northeast Conference. “The membership wanted there to be some accountability for the student-athletes.”
Previously in Division I, when student-athletes wanted to transfer, they had to ask their coach for permission to contact other schools. If the coach denied the request, student-athletes could make their case to the athletics director.
If permission was still denied, student-athletes could make the request to a designated campus administrator, such as a dean of students. If the request still wasn’t approved, the final step would be to appeal to a committee that consists of professionals on campus and other students.
Those who didn’t receive permission still could transfer but couldn’t be offered athletics aid at the new school.
Once student-athletes identified schools where they would explore attending, the compliance administrator had to send correspondence to each of the schools. Those schools would send back a transfer tracer that had to be filled out by hand.
Since there was no uniform way for schools to put together transfer tracers, they could vary in the questions asked and the length of the form that needed to be filled out. For example, if a student-athlete wanted to explore transferring to 10 schools, the compliance administrator at the current school would have to fill out 10 tracers, which were either faxed or scanned to email back and forth between the athletics departments.
Depending on workload, a compliance administrator couldn’t know for sure when the other school would reply.
“There were enormous inefficiencies in the previous way we had to do this,” says Carrie Doyle, senior associate athletics director for compliance at NC State. “I’ve always been a person who appreciates a good system and a good process. From a 100,000-foot perspective, the Transfer Portal is a smart thing to do.”
