It seems like all of Ohio awaited the fate of Justin Fields when he made the decision to transfer from Georgia to Ohio State. Under the NCAA’s transfer rules, without a waiver being granted, he would have to sit out one year in Columbus.
When the waiver was granted in relatively short order, the feeling across multiple media outlets and opinion-makers was that Fields was granted the exception by the NCAA because a racially charged incident that occurred while he was at Georgia. This, at the hands of a former Bulldog baseball player.
However, that appears to not be the case according to information provided by ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg. He shared a quote from Fields’ attorney Tom Mars that dealt directly with information on the waiver request, but did not go into specific detail other than away from that claim.
Here’s the full quote from Mars.
“Irrefutable documentation that has nothing to do with racism was presented to the NCAA in support of OSU’s request that Justin Fields be given a waiver. That information wasn’t critical of — and didn’t reflect poorly on — the UGA culture, the UGA administration or staff, any particular student, or the student body. And it certainly didn’t reflect poorly on Justin or any member of his family. However, that documentation did provide support for the issuance of a waiver under the NCAA’s rules.”
There you have it. It’s unknown what that documentation was centered around, and with how private the Fields family has been with all of this (and rightfully so), we’ll probably all be left guessing.
I’m sure this will bring those that know nothing about the situation out of the woodwork to judge the process and perceived leniency in this matter, but the truth is, only Fields, his family, attorney, and perhaps others close to him know the full story.
