College Football Transfer Portal

NBA superstar Kevin Durant famously said, "Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard." This means that hard work will always pay off and is even more valuable than talent. Hard work ethic is encrypted in athletes and humans across the world but is this what we really value as a society? 

The best example to contradict this theory is the College Football Transfer Portal. 

The Transfer Portal displays how America truly values money over anything else. Last year Justin Fields was the backup quarterback for the Georgia Bulldogs, after being ranked the number one high school player in the country. He repeatedly tried over and over again to win the job of starter, but couldn't beat out the veteran Jake Fromm. Fields' decision was to essentially quit trying to replace Fromm, and transfer to another college where he could start.

 This is where the transfer portal comes in. The standard for transferring athletes once they transfer is to sit out a year, but there are loopholes. The only way a transfer student can be granted immediate eligibility is their reason for transferring is justified as being no due to athletics. In the case of Justin Fields, it indicates how the NCAA truly values money. His reason for transferring was because he didn't want to put in the hard work it took to win the starting job, so his lawyer used an illegitimate case to grant him immediate eligibility. The NCAA knew the former top-ranked QB would skyrocket the ratings at a big school like Ohio State, so they gave him slack and granted him immediate eligibility, which is why he is the starting quarterback at Ohio State today.

 It would be one thing is granting players instant eligibility was the norm, but it wasn't in the case of one Brock Hoffman. Hoffman had a sincere and genuine reason for transferring, yet the NCAA has no sympathy for a mediocre offensive lineman from a low profile school. It is truly pathetic at the end of the day that it will take two years for Hoffman to play in front of his sick mother who's recovering from a brain tumor. Virginia Tech won’t become championship contenders or make millions by the addition of Hoffman, which means he isn’t worth anything to the NCAA.

In the case of Fields and hundreds of other students across the country leaving their school because they refuse to work hard, it shows the little value of hard work. And when the NCAA approves phony transfer reasons, it gives the players one more reason to stop working hard. This shows that today the value of hard work is diminishing and being shortcutted. Not only is the transfer portal ruining a hard work effort, but it is ruining college football as a whole. Hard work isn’t the only value affected by the transfer portal. The  NCAA’s reasons to grant players immediate eligibility, and the transfer portal itself reflect our society today and how there is nothing valued more than money.