(NewsNation) — University of Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari has proposed a solution to the state of college athletics.
Calipari spoke critically of the current rules, which allow professional players to join college basketball teams and permit players to transfer from school to school without sitting out a season, unlike previous rules.
“If a kid transfers four times, is he gonna graduate from that school?” Calipari said this week in a seven-minute rant.
“There’s no way. You can’t graduate. So now you’re gonna be done playing without a college degree. You have no ties to the last school you went to … I’m worried about mental health,” he said.
As such, Calipari offered up his idea of a solution.
“You can transfer once without penalty, because you picked the wrong school … and after that, you got to sit,” Calipari added.
“If we cure the transfer rule, 70% of our problems go away, (and) we can deal with all the other stuff.”
On Dec. 24, Baylor announced that 7-foot Nigerian center James Nnaji had joined the basketball program after playing four seasons professionally in Europe, a span that included Nnaji being drafted No. 31 overall by the Detroit Pistons.
Nnaji also played in the NBA Summer League for the New York Knicks after his rights were traded.
“Does anybody care what this is doing for 17-and 18-year-old American kids?” Calipari asked. “Do you know what this opportunity has done for them and their families? There aren’t gonna be any high school kids.
“Who, other than dumb people like me, are gonna recruit high school kids? I get so much satisfaction out of coaching young kids and seeing them grow and make it and their family’s life changes that I’m gonna keep doing it. But why would anybody else, if you can get NBA players, G-League players, guys that are 28 years old, guys from Europe — do we really know their transcripts? Do we have somebody over there? Do we really know their birth certificate? Or don’t we?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.