Cal Poly… athletes as property

 Kaylene Wagner was refused a release from Cal Poly San Luis obispo... and sat out a year at Kansas State

I wasn’t too surprised when I gave my first ‘Weenie Award’ for 2007 to Cal Poly State University at San Luis Obispo. They have been the recipient of many such awards in the past… including the infamous U.S. News Report ‘Sheldon Award’ given each year to the worst president.

Sometimes athletes find themselves at universities that are a poor match  socially, athletically or academically and they end up wanting to transfer somewhere else. “Regular’ students transfer… so it seems reasonable that athletes may wish to do the same.

The process of transfering for an athlete is a bit more involved than it is for a regular student. The athlete must first obtain a ‘release’ from their present school before they can begin to talk to anyone else. Actually, I think this is a good idea… coaches and teams deserve to be notified if one of their athletes is unhappy enough to desire a transfer. However, obtaining a ‘release’ should be automatic… but as we will see… it isn’t.

Kaylene Wagner jumped for Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo for two seasons. We noticed she transfered to Kansas State and sat out last year… I discovered asking around that Kaylene did not recieve a release from Cal Poly! Why would any school be so…. nasty & vengeful, and self serving ?

Well, here are some of the reasons I have heard that athletes are not granted waivers: 1) we trained and developed their talent 2) the big programs don’t give waivers to their top talent 3) we don’t want to be treated like a junior college where they ‘move on.’ Hmmmm…

When you have powerful athletic programs like Southern California & Florida & Arkansas providing releases… It’s hard to understand small schools with token athletic programs like Cal Poly not having an athlete’s best interest at heart…

The underlying problem here is some athletic programs view athletes like ‘property’. If this issue emerges in the NCAA… it will be because of schools like Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Now, IF I were an athlete deciding on a school… I would look at how athletes are treated when they want to leave… if they are treated poorly… I would drop them from my list.

 

Roger Freberg

Presented to Cal Poly the first

CAL POLY San Luis Obispo
“Big Weenie Awardee”