Denied a 6th year of NCAA Division 1 eligibility....will play at D-2 level in 2017. Sounds like a tough break for the kid. I wish him the best. And oh yeah, screw the NCAA.
Ian Park
- Thread starter CoralSpringsCat
- Start date
The NCAA is such a bogus institution at times. Their rules really make you scratch your head.
That's a real tough break, but as a Shippensburg alum I'll look forward to watching Ian's progress in the Pennsylvania Conference next season. May he have a good season and stay injury-free. I wish he'd gotten more of a chance to play for NU.
There was a time every Saturday that the Slippery Rock football score would always be mentioned on national TV coverage. With a wink and a grin they would pay homage to the coolest named university on the planet. We'll be giving more attention to those scores again this coming fall. Wishing Ian nothing but the best in all he does.
Good luck, Ian, and I am sorry you are governed by an organization as clueless and crooked as your average banana republic.
Meanwhile, Joe Mixon et al play on...
Meanwhile, Joe Mixon et al play on...
Here is Park's explanation from his Twitter page: "Due to an injury I sustained last spring, I was unable to complete during the 2016 season. I did not qualify for a medical redshirt because I did not miss two full seasons due to injury. Missing this year meant that I exhausted my eligibility at Northwestern and the Division 1 level."
I didn't know about the requirement that you miss two full seasons due to injury to obtain a medical redshirt for a sixth year. That is a terrible rule. If you miss a season because of injury, you should be allowed to obtain a medical redshirt regardless of it is your fifth or sixth year. That rule simply punishes kids who redshirt their freshman season.
I didn't know about the requirement that you miss two full seasons due to injury to obtain a medical redshirt for a sixth year. That is a terrible rule. If you miss a season because of injury, you should be allowed to obtain a medical redshirt regardless of it is your fifth or sixth year. That rule simply punishes kids who redshirt their freshman season.
Yes, doesn't seem to make sense. Ian's a good kid who is getting hosed by the bureaucracy of the NCAA.
The story goes that one afternoon at a Michigan game the PA announcer read a Slippery Rock score as sort of a lark and got a big reaction from a crowd that probably couldn't believe there actually was a Slippery Rock. It became a sort of tradition to read the Slippery Rock score at Michigan. The Michigan AD at the time — I believe his name was Don Canham — was never one to pass up a promotion and came up with the idea to offer Slippery Rock a chance to play in Michigan Stadium on a Saturday when the Wolverines were on road. The people at Slippery Rock, naturally, jumped at the chance, and the result was that Slippery Rock actually played at Michigan Stadium in the early '80s. To promote the event, Canham offered Michigan STH free admission to the game. Slippery Rock's opponent that week happened to be my alma mater, Shippensburg, and that is how the Rock and Ship ended up playing before more than 60,000 fans in Michigan Stadium. To give you an idea of what an experience that was for those guys, Shippensburg plays before an average of about 7,000-7,500 fans at home games, and that is considered very good for Division II. As a side note, Ship had a good passing attack this year and routed Slimy Pebble by something like 42-14 in the game at Michigan.
No, it's not the bureaucracy of the NCAA that did this to him. The NCAA is "us". The rules are not made by the folks in Indianapolis; they are made and voted on by the member institutions. I agree the rule that prohibited Ian from playing another year at NU is a stupid rule, but that is what the Division I committee and member institutions decided. I was part of the folks who voted at the Division II level to have more reasonable, student-friendly rules. The folks in Indy get dumped on a lot, but many times they think the rules are stupid too, but they are required to enforce them - just like attorneys sometimes have to defend people they know are guilty.
Then "we" need to change them. Every year there are countless examples of things that make no logical sense. Most of these dumb rules are put in place to close loop holes so institutions don't use those loop holes to their advantage. I remember back in the Stone Age not being able to get a job because somebody hired a bunch of student athletes to "work" at a car dealership where they were paid excessively or paid for not even showing up. Here's an idea for the NCAA, how about some meaningful penalties for the rogue violations that actually act as a deterrent.
Totally agree. Several years ago Division II folks went through their rules and regulations and cleaned things up; I think we cut the book by a third. But every time we came to a rule that seemed stupid, there was always a story behind why it was introduced and passed - some institutions (often DI institutions) would do crazy stuff to cheat. They felt the chance of getting caught was low and the penalties not that bad (and head coaches were not held responsible for what went on in their programs, and they figured they will have moved on by the time the school is caught and penalized; in theory that has changed now with head coaches being responsible for anything that happens and penalties can travel with a coach - in theory, of course). Serious penalties for the real cheaters would help, but I just don't see it happening.
It is crazy that they have a limit on when and how often you can use a medical redshirt. To me, you should have an unlimited number of medical redshirt years available. If you have a documented injury and cannot play whether that be your first or sixth year, then you should not lose a year of eligibility because of that. And if that means a guy uses multiple medical redshirt years, then I don't see what the problem is.
Do you mean like at BYU?
Our very own Tom Hruby is in his 30s. I don't think you'd see many 25-year-olds with a long injury history wanting to keep playing college football but feel they should have the opportunity to do if they still have eligibility. And to be clear, I'm only talking about medical redshirts which have to be documented. I am perfectly fine with the existing rules about regular redshirts.
Will he be a dominant player at Slippery Rock? How much does the competition fall off? Will he get any NFL or CFL recognition? or does he just want to play one more season?
What is the difference in physical stature between a 21 yo senior and a 25 yo? Everyone is fully grown by that time. There are no upper age limit rules for NCAA participation, are there? And what incentive would there be for an athlete to stick around that long just to game the system? I could see some shady programs trying to get kids through this system somehow so they were a couple years older when using up their eligibility but it would be very hard to prove the medical need for it, and hard to see kids going along with it.
No not everyone is "fully grown" as a 21 year old. Four more years of high-level strength and conditioning make a HUGE difference.
The competition, obviously, is a big drop from the B1G. It isn't as much a question of size these days, although B1G teams are obviously larger on average, as speed and overall athleticism. The guys in Division II were often great at their high schools, but are usually a step slower than their Division I counterparts. Based on Park's limited performance at NU, I suspect he certainly could be a very effective lineman at the Division II level if he stays healthy. At Shippensburg, we had a back named Cole Chiappialle transfer in from Penn State last year after he saw the writing on the wall with Barkley and Miles Sanders ahead of him. He had a nice season, but certainly wasn't dominant. A good back for Ship in the '70s, Fred Glasgow, transferred from Syracuse and had a season of about 1,000 yards. While the defenses aren't what you'd face at Division I, you also have a Division II line blocking for you, so it evens out. Park would actually have a decent chance at an NFL tryout if that's truly what he wants given his injury history. Shippensburg presently has two players in the NFL, Jon Kuhn at Green Bay and Brent Grimes at Atlanta. When I attended Ship back in the '60s dark ages, I remember us playing against Bob Tucker of Bloomsburg, who went on to play tight end for several years with the New York Giants. The PSAC has also produced several prominent basketball and football coaches, including Geno Auriemma, John Calipari, Vivian Stringer and James Franklin.
The most common type of examples at 25 will be guys that served in the military, may have tried another sport like baseball and failed, or came from Austraila to punt. 25 year old players with extended playing gaps or limited experience aren't just going to fall out of trees and be difference makers.
But are not the type of player discussed in this thread, which are hypothetical players who take a medical DQ and are then allowed to come back.
