By Justin W. Brantley Sr (@JustinWBrantley)
The Away Team Sports was designed to provide education, inspiration and motivation to Student Athletes and their families as they navigate the recruiting process. I have decided to share a personal story with hopes that it will serve as a cautionary tale and help someone remedy or avoid a similar situation.
The last two weeks have been an emotional roller coaster for the “Brantley” Family. My cousin Alex, who we have all been working hard to assist in reaching his dream of playing college basketball, received a full scholarship to play at Western Illinois University. Within days of this amazing news, I got a call from his future coach explaining that he was in jeopardy of being deemed a “Non Qualifier” by the NCAA because he appeared to be one Core Course short. What does that mean?
Beginning with Student Athletes enrolling in college August of 2016, The NCAA made adjustments to their Initial Eligibility Requirements and instituted what has been called the “2.3 or Take Knee Rule”! In order to be eligible to compete in Division 1 athletics you need to graduate from high school, complete 16 courses labeled “Core Courses” by the NCAA (including 10 before your 7th Semester.) You must maintain a 2.3 GPA in your Core Courses in order to be eligible to compete in your first year of NCAA athletics, have a combined SAT or ACT score that matches your core-course GPA on a sliding scale provided by the NCAA. If you don’t reach these standards you will be prohibited from practicing with the team, playing in competition, and receiving athletic scholarship aid. The NCAA marketed the new rule changes and rolled out a campaign to ensure all Student Athletes, Coaches, Parents, Counselors and Administrators understood the changes.
What Is A Core Course?
The first step in understanding the new requirements is identifying what a “Core Course” is and the structure required to obtain them.
The Required 16 “Core Courses” are as follows:
Four (4) years of English
Three (3) years of math (Algebra 1 or higher)
Two (2) years of natural/physical science (including one year of lab science if your high school offers it)
One (1) additional year of English, math or natural/physical science
Two (2) years of social science
Four (4) additional years of English, math, natural/physical science, social science, foreign language, comparative religion or philosophy
*ALL CORE COURSES MUST BE APPROVED THROUGH THE NCAA. YOU CAN CHECK TO SEE THE APPROVED CORE COURSES FOR YOUR HIGH SCHOOL BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK * https://web3.ncaa.org/hsportal/exec/hsAction?hsActionSubmit=searchHighSchool
The Rollercoaster Continued…
As I sat the phone down, still trying to wrap my head around the news I had just received, I blamed myself. How could I have missed this? I reviewed the transcripts personally and had assured college coaches that Alex was a qualifier. GPA? Check! SAT Score? Got it! 16 Core Courses? Yep! (Or so I thought…) I pulled out the transcript to re-confirm what I had already known, THERE WERE 16 CORE COURSES! I immediately called coach and we reviewed together. At the end of the call, we were both confident that he did indeed have 16 core courses, so why was one of them not showing up in his final eligibility calculation? So we went to the 48H (The list of NCAA Approved Core Courses for each High School). That’s when we noticed 2 issues. 1) One of his core courses was neither on the Approved nor Denied list for his school (which means the course and course description had not been submitted to the NCAA for approval) and 2) The Courses for his school had not been updated/evaluated with the NCAA since Fall of 2015… FOUR YEARS!
At this point, I was furious but encouraged. Furious because I couldn’t believe that this simple process had slipped through the cracks for years and encouraged because I knew this could be a simple solution. I immediately called the school’s principal and walked him through the process of what needed to be done next. He was AMAZING, and within 3 hours he called me back to inform me that the course had been updated and submitted to the NCAA. A week later, I received word from the NCAA that Alex had been deemed a Full Qualifier. This was great news because he is set to report to campus next Saturday.
How Many Other “Alex’s” Are Out There?
How many Student Athlete’s have been deemed in-eligible due to a shortage of Core Credits or their GPA not being high enough because of a missing course that they did well in?
The thought of this potentially happening to student athletes in schools across the country made me sick. I immediately began doing research on other schools in hopes that this would be an isolated incident. I started with the Detroit Public School District where over half of the schools hadn’t had their courses reviewed by the NCAA since Fall of 2015 with the oldest being October of 2013. SIX YEARS! Could it be that there have been no curriculum or staff changes in those schools over the last 4+ years? Possibly, but knowing what I know about Alex’s situation; I’m pretty certain that is not the case. The next school I researched was Mount Clemens High School. In 2013 while assisting, Head Basketball Coach, Jermaine Jackson, I had a long talk with the guidance counselor explaining the recruiting process and initial eligibility changes. I wondered if they had remained on top of their courses. I knew they had gone through a change in Superintendents and Principals so I’m certain there have been curriculum adjustments. To my dismay, their last update of core courses submitted to the NCAA was in December of 2014.
As I continued my research of school districts across the State of Michigan and then the Country, I found more of the same. I can only imagine the number of Student Athletes nationwide who missed out on, not only the dream of playing their sport in college, but also the ability to obtain a free or reduced college education based on factors beyond their control…
What Can We Do About It?
There are a few important things that parents MUST do to ensure their Student Athletes don’t miss out on opportunities due to this oversight.
1) Check the approved core courses for your Student Athlete’s High School prior to selecting their course schedule. If it hasn’t been updated in a few years meet with his/her Counselor and Principal to make sure they submit the course descriptions to the NCAA.
2) Pay close attention to the NCAA Initial Eligibility academic requirements and review your Student Athlete’s report cards each semester to ensure they are making proper progress.
3) ASK QUESTIONS! If there is something that doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t! Bring it to someone’s attention and make sure it is taken care of. This will not only help your child but also all of the other children in their school!
4) SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH OTHER PARENTS OF STUDENT ATHLETES NAVIGATING THROUGH THE RECRUITING PROCESS!
For Daily Inspiration, Motivation and Recruiting Tips; Follow me on Twitter @JustinWBrantley