The hypocrisy of colleges and universities across the nation – these supposedly educational institutions and their money-grubbing focus on college sports – is an unsettling and well-documented phenomena.
Now comes yet another case – in the form of Daisha Simmons and the University of Alabama – of an educational institution placing an inordinate emphasis on a student's status as an athlete while completely ignoring her performance, aspirations, and fundamental humanity.
Simmons, a Jersey City resident who is currently enrolled in graduate classes aimed at earning an MBA from Seton Hall University, is a former University of Alabama undergraduate and women's basketball team member.
Simmons graduated from Alabama last year and decided to return home. Her older brother Chaz's health issues (he has end-stage renal disease and requires kidney dialysis at least twice a week) combined with her elderly mother's deteriorating health and her longstanding desire to join a graduate degree program pushed her to seek to transfer schools, according to the Asbury Park Press.
She wanted a university that would both keep her closer to her ailing family and provide her the opportunity to take classes aimed at furthering her education and jump-starting her on her career path – and also allow her to continue playing basketball.
Her decision to transfer to Seton Hall though was blocked by Alabama and first-year coach Kristy Curry.
The school and coach claimed that Simmons was not allowed to transfer because the timing of her request left them unable to properly replace her scholarship.
"Given the timing that she wanted to transfer left little or no time for the women's basketball team to make alternate plans to replace her," University of Alabama Director of Athletics Bill Battle wrote in a letter explaining Alabama's refusal to sign off on the transfer.
"I hope Alabama takes the next step to support my playing," said Simmons in response. "I feel they've been unfair."
Unfair. Dishonest. Bullying.
There's another word to describe this type of behavior and these types of tactics: hypocritical.
Seton Hall made a written appeal to the NCAA, saying that such a stance was particularly unfair, considering "Alabama is benefiting from this same waiver process with a men's football transfer (graduate Jake Coker) vying for the starting quarterback position who was granted the ability to play immediately because Florida State supported his transfer."
Simmons wrote several letters herself to the NCAA in a desperate appeal to allow her transfer to move forward unimpeded.
"I don't understand why the quarterback on the football team was allowed to be a graduate transfer and play right away but I am not being allowed to do the same," she wrote. "I love the people and time I spent at Alabama and I don't want this to end the wrong way, but my mother and I are prepared to do whatever we need to for me to play this year, and we won't stop fighting until it happens."
In another letter to Battle, Simmons pleaded with him not to make this process any more difficult for her than it already is.
"My mother is currently working two jobs with diminishing health issues and my brother's heath is also declining each day as he awaits a kidney transplant," Simmons wrote in her letter. "So not being able to work full-time for another year will put my family in great despair."
Simmons is currently on scholarship at Seton Hall and able to practice with the basketball team, but can't yet play in games.
Tony Bozzella, the head coach of Seton Hall University's women's basketball team, said he's never seen a situation like this. Schools may make a fuss and throw up obstacles initially but always eventually acquiesce to the transfers desire to leave.
"I've been a head coach for 23 years and I've never seen an instance like this in my career," Bozzella said. "I've never even heard of an instance like this, where someone wants to leave a program for educational and family-related reasons and does not get released. I don't understand it."
Simmons has said that this is an issue she views as not just involving herself, but all collegiate athletes. She has retained an attorney.
"It's a travesty," her mother, Christine Simmons, said. "She gave 100 percent on the court and she graduated. It's very spiteful."
Bozzella offered maybe the most salient comment on the situation – and a stark reminder of the larger picture of the NCAA money-making machine and its treatment of student athletes.
"She fulfilled her academics in good standing," Bozzella said. "That's what is frustrating. We're dealing with academic institutions first and foremost."
Academic institutions.
It's about time Alabama and every other university across the nation that benefits from immensely lucrative collegiate sports programs started acting that way.
