Associate Professor of Biochemistry
Phone: (502)852-5752; Fax: (502)852-6222
 
Over the past few days Mike brought up the question about how the new program
at UMass is allocating their 18 scholarships, being a state school, etc and
now we are into the "Redshirt" question. The coaches view may be much
different than ours and the complications include athletic skills, academic
skills, competing offers for entering athletes and leaving for the pro's. My
understanding is that athletes have 5 yrs to play 4 and if they are on a full
scholarship, that covers all 5 yrs if they Redshirt or get a medical leave.
This is no small expense for private schools or out-of-state athletes.
 
I am most familiar with basketball recruiting (What else in KY?) and this yr
Denny Crum had to deal with Cliff Rozier being drafted and whether or not he
would return plus 3 star recruits who ended up not getting the required
SAT/ACT scores. They have scrambled a bit lately and ended up giving a
scholarship to a 5'9" guard - the first sub-6'/36+" vertical leap guard ever.
This gets into the area of written offers vs verbal commitments vs "interest"
at all stages of the process up to the anticipated matriculation. Most people
would consider a verbal offer to be a binding contract, but there continue to
be "misunderstandings" about what was actually said and by what coach. In my
mind there is no question about the written offer and I hope BC gets sued and
loses a lot of money for what they did.
 
In any recruitment, it appears to me that a state school recruiting in-state
athletes has an incredible recruiting advantage. What MN enjoys now is coming
the UMass-Amherst way soon and I'll be very surprised if UMass-Am isn't in the
NC$$ within 5 yrs. Tom O'Conner (Jr A - Springfield Olympics) going to
UMass-Am after the BC screw-up may just be the beginning of the 'Pics being a
farm team for UMass-Am - sort of like the St Paul Vulcans for MN.
 
Having a beautiful campus and great facilities plus being able to split
scholarships for in-state athletes and having a "farm" team in the two biggest
high school hockey states is likely to give both MN and UMass-Am an unfair
recruiting advantage. I can't imagine any MN kid who has visited the new Mari
ucci (thanks again Carol) and seen the locker room and everything else not
wanting to play there. Luckily the NC$$ hasn't regulated this aspect of
college athletics (yet) and as a UMass alum, I can only say go Minutemen!
 
P.S. For those into Politically Correct nicknames, when I went to UMass-Am we
were the Redman.