Non-pay to play

Wow.  I’m touched by my own naiveté this morning.  I have to admit this never dawned on me before: A common misconception is that walk-ons are treated in a significantly different way than scholarship student-athletes. By and large rules apply the same to a student-athlete on a full grant-in-aid and a student-athlete paying his or her own freight to go to school. In general, this works out well for walk-ons. But when a walk-on decides to possibly transfer and wants to talk to other schools, it should not necessarily be so. To have any degree of control over a student-athlete’s movements (even the tiny amount below), an institution should have to invest directly in his or her education. A walk-on should not require any permission to talk to schools or transfer anywhere. An institution maintains the ability to offer a walk-on a scholarship for the next term or year, provided the institution has scholarship money available. In other words, a walk-on student-athlete who wants to t...