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Greg McDermott leaves Iowa State for Creighton. Todd Lickleiter is let go at Iowa. Northern Iowa discontinues its baseball program.
All of these events can have a troubling impact on student-athletes.
According to Steve Schofield, Associate Athletic Director for Student Services at UNI, the general NCAA rule is if a student-athlete wants to transfer to another university, he/she must sit out one year of competition.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, most notably in football. A student-athlete may transfer from a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) program to a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) program and be immediately eligible to compete as long as they have two years of eligibility remaining. 
There has been much discussion recently on the fairness of student-athletes being bound to a university commitment when a coach leaves or gets fired.
“There is a misconception among recruits, right or wrong, that they are recruited and signed by a coach, when really they are committing to a program, a university,” Schofield said.
He explained this is more of an issue with higher profile sports—football, basketball—and bigger name schools where the turnover sometimes is more frequent. However, all of the Iowa state universities and even private colleges lose coaches from time to time.
What is fair to the student-athlete? Schofield said there is a release that student-athletes can apply for to their university. “At UNI we usually ask our student-athletes to hold off on release requests until a new coach is hired and has a chance to talk to the individual. After that, on average we usually grant 90 percent of any requests we receive. We don’t want to keep a kid who really doesn’t want to be here.”
Schofield explained the rule is in place to prevent programs from being decimated when a coach leaves.
Student-athletes may also request this one-time transfer even if there hasn’t been a coaching change which recently happened in the case of Doug McDermott. In an interview with Doug Newhoff of the Waterloo Courier, Coach Ben Jacobson said releasing McDermott to play for his father was “the right thing to do”.
Of the estimated 400 student-athletes at UNI at any one time, Schofield said they only receive about 15 or 20 requests a year—most of which are from walk-on student-athletes. “They find they want to be closer to home or they’ll try out a sport and realize they can’t compete at our level. Some want to go somewhere that they are going to be able to get playing time.” He sees far fewer requests from student-athletes who are on substantial scholarship support.
The UNI track program has undergone two coaching changes in the past three years. Some student-athletes, like Dorian Ulrey, chose to follow Chris Bucknam to the University of Arkansas.
“There was a lot of thought that went into my decision to leave UNI and follow Coach Bucknam,” Ulrey explained. “At the time I decided to attend UNI, I was basing my decision off of where I thought I had the greatest ability to succeed as a student and an athlete and that meant being under the tutelage of Coach Bucknam. So when he decided to leave, my main reason for attending school was now leaving as well. I saw this as an opportunity to experience a new school, meet new people, allow my athletics to develop at a school with great facilities and see life from a new perspective.”
Greg Offerman, also a track athlete, made a different choice. “When Coach Bucknam left it was a real shock because he had been here for two and a half decades, but everyone knew the program was in great hands with Coach (Travis) Geopfert sticking around,” he said.
“When Coach Geopfert left the following year, it was a lot more difficult on me and my teammates because there was a lot of uncertainty about what was going to happen. There was a day or so when I gave some thought to hanging it up because I had already graduated and had one year of outdoor eligibility left. When I began to think about the younger men and women on our team that really had a chance to become great, I knew I had to come back and provide solid leadership for them, especially during those rough times.”
Both student-athletes say they are very happy with their decisions. Ulrey has an extremely close relationship with Bucknam, saying he has spent more time with the Bucknam family over the past years than his own family.
Offerman is happy the track program hired a great coach in Dan Steele. “In my opinion, the coaching changes and uncertainty we had really bonded the team together. We had to rely on our teammates for the support we needed which will only help us out in the long run.”
Another track student-athlete, Dani Stipe, also chose to stay at UNI. “There was never a question as to whether I was going to leave UNI. I have always insisted that track is not my life; it is simply something I do, so I wasn’t going to change a huge part of my life because of it.” 
The situation is even more stressful for student-athletes when an athletic program is discontinued. Schofield explained that in this case, the NCAA allows student-athletes to transfer and be eligible immediately without any strings attached
Gabe Schultz was a member of UNI’s baseball team. He originally transferred to St. Cloud State University, but is back at UNI finishing his degree.
“The reason I came back to UNI was because of credit transferring issues. It was going to take me three and a half more years to graduate in my major at St. Cloud,” he said.
UNI made the announcement that baseball would be discontinued in the middle of the 2009 season. According to Schultz, the timing added additional stress for the student-athletes. “It made it hard on the players because they didn’t know where they were going to go. I ended up signing with St. Cloud halfway through the summer. School was starting in a month, and I had to get all my transcripts sent out, sign up for classes and find an apartment in less than a month. The process was very stressful.”
This year UNI is the beneficiary of a discontinued program. Northeastern University, an FBS program, dropped football last year. Center Brian Palangi transferred and participated with the Panthers throughout spring ball.
Offerman said it is easy to become emotional whenever there is a coaching or a program change. “Coaching changes are tough and they cause your mind to start thinking about all the different possibilities, but I would tell someone who is facing a coaching change, do not make any emotional decisions. Turn to your teammates and rally around each other.”
He said the quality of UNIas a university across the board, both athletically and academically, will always attract high caliber coaches.
Schofield said there is no ideal way to govern all situations. “It’s an imperfect system but what we have is pretty good, a blanket rule. It keeps programs from being depleted.” He said thereneeds to be better communication by coaches when they are recruiting student-athletes. “Coaches need to sell their universities when kids are signing Letters of Intent. Education should be the goal for each student-athlete, not the career of the coach.”
Stipe believes recruits should take into consideration other factors than just the coach. “I wouldn’t recommend making a college decision based on one person. It’s risky to make such a big choice based on someone you really don’t know that well. You have to think about all the other people like teammates, other coaches, professors, and classmates that are going to be impacting you. They will have more of a lasting effect than any one person could.”
Offerman also offered this advice. “Choose a school that has the right academic environment and athletic culture to suit your needs and the rest will take care of itself. The University of Northern Iowa is a great university academically and it prepares students very well for the real world, which is what we are all after in the long run.”
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