Mack Brown upset over NCAA denying UNC transfer waiver: ‘SHAME ON YOU!’
“I don’t know that I have ever been as disappointed in a person, a group of people or an institution as I am now with the NCAA,” Brown said in his statement, which was shared by the North Carolina football program. “It is clear that the NCAA is all about process and does not care about the young people it is supposed to support. Plain and simple: The NCAA has failed Tez and his family, and I have lost all confidence in their ability to lead and govern our sport.”
Brown ended his statement by saying, “Shame on you, NCAA. SHAME ON YOU!”
Walker, a Charlotte native who earned first-team All-MAC honors as a sophomore at Kent State last season, reportedly enrolled at UNC in January, in part to be near his ailing grandmother be. He began his college career at East Tennessee State in 2019, but deferred his enrollment after suffering a serious knee injury. After enrolling at North Carolina Central in 2020, Walker saw that season canceled due to the pandemic. He then transferred to Kent State after never playing a game at North Carolina Central.
In a statement Thursday accusing the NCAA of lacking “common sense, reason and compassion” in its decision, UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham emphasized the fact that Walker “only played football at one school.” .
Other factors cited by Cunningham included the claim that UNC and Kent State “provided overwhelming evidence of his mental health needs.” Additionally, the athletic director noted that the NCAA had tightened its waivers after Walker had already moved to the Tar Heels.
Cunningham’s statement also included a possible dig at Colorado coach Deion Sanders’ remarkably quick rebuilding effort, which included adding more than 50 players through the transfer portal. Cunningham also apparently alluded to Rice quarterback JT Daniels, who previously played for USC, Georgia and West Virginia starting in 2018.
“Seeing more than 50 student-athletes transfer to one school or watching a starting quarterback play for his fourth university in his sixth year makes no sense to many,” Cunningham wrote. “Arbitrarily excluding a student-athlete from competition – when that student-athlete has only played two seasons of football at one school in the last five years and wants to play closer to home for legitimate family and mental health reasons – makes no sense. ”
“When I made the decision to transfer from Kent State back to my home at UNC, I thought I would be able to play this year,” Walker said in a statement last month (via Inside Carolina). “Because the rules were set then, we knew we had to file a waiver as a dual transfer, and in previous years those waivers were granted.”
After saying last month that Walker “followed all the rules … and then the rules changed,” Brown fretted Thursday that the wide receiver “had a difficult time and this is certainly only going to make it worse.” .
“Imagine what it is like for Tez to come home so excited and have the chance to fulfill his childhood dream of playing for North Carolina in front of all his family and friends, only to lose it again “Even though he did nothing wrong,” Brown said in his statement. “I cannot begin to understand how this could have happened. The NCAA and committee decision makers should be ashamed for doing this to a young man.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/09/07/mack-brown-ncaa-transfer-waiver/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_homepage Mack Brown upset over NCAA denying UNC transfer waiver: ‘SHAME ON YOU!’
