December 21, 2023
FormanWatkins Sports Compliance Team Closes Out Year with NCAA Reversal
The FormanWatkins Sports Compliance-NCAA team of W.G. Watkins, Courtney Hunt, Chelsea Lewis and Mitch McGuffey successfully helped a Division I student athlete secure a two-time transfer waiver from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), allowing him to immediately compete following his second transfer. The student-athlete’s waiver application was initially denied by the NCAA.
While NCAA transfer rules are currently on hold pursuant to an agreement of several State Attorneys General and the NCAA, at the time, the rules required student-athletes to sit out a year of competition following a second transfer between universities, unless the NCAA granted a waiver for an athlete to compete immediately. The NCAA stated, “Student-athletes must demonstrate and adequately document a personal need for medical or safety reasons to depart their previous school.” After working with the university to prepare submissions for the appeal and submitting documents to the NCAA on behalf of the student-athlete, the FormanWatkins team was able to successfully demonstrate the student-athlete met the requirements for a waiver.
The FormanWatkins team was in the process of helping two additional student-athletes appeal waiver denials, at the time the rules were enjoined. The team is pleased that all three of their clients are now playing.
