CHAPEL HILL, N.C. _ Citing the hypocrisy of college sports, an NCAA bylaw and standards of decency, Cameron Johnson, a graduate transfer from the University of Pittsburgh, made his case on Tuesday for the immediate eligibility that he seeks at North Carolina.
After announcing his intention to transfer to North Carolina, Johnson, a former basketball player at Pitt, released a lengthy statement in which he argues why he should be immediately eligible to compete at UNC.
Johnson, who has two years of remaining eligibility after he graduated in three years from Pitt, wrote that UNC is "the one school that fits my academic and athletic interests the most." Pitt, though, is restricting Johnson's transfer and attempting to force him to sit out next season at UNC.
Unlike undergraduate college athletes, who are forced to sit out for one season after they transfer, those who transfer after graduating are eligible to compete immediately under NCAA rules. Different conferences and universities, though, have their own policies for graduate transfers.
Pitt's policy restricts graduate transfers from being immediately eligible at any other ACC school, or any other school on Pitt's schedule during the next year. And so while Johnson could be immediately eligible at schools outside of the ACC, Pitt is attempting to force him to sit out next season at UNC.
In his statement, Johnson emphasized the hypocrisy of such a stance. He wrote about how his first head coach at Pitt, Jamie Dixon, left the school and immediately began coaching at TCU, and about how Kevin Stallings left Vanderbilt to become Dixon's immediate successor at Pitt.
During Johnson's three years at Pitt, the university also lost one athletic director and hired another. Johnson also noted that the associate athletic director who heard his transfer appeal recently left for another job at another institution.
Of those who had come and gone, Johnson wrote, "all had the freedom to move as they pleased. As a student-athlete, who is not a paid employee of the school, and a graduate, shouldn't I be granted the same freedom of movement?"
Johnson also cited an NCAA rule that stipulates graduate transfers be allowed to compete immediately at a given school, or be completely denied the opportunity to transfer to that school. Pitt is allowing Johnson to transfer to UNC, and receive immediate athletic financial aid. And so, Johnson argued, given that he wasn't prohibited from transferring to UNC, he should be immediately eligible there.
During a recent interview, Johnson said he graduated from Pitt with a 3.9 GPA. In his statement, he wrote that Pitt officials cited his strong academic record in their decision to allow him to transfer to an ACC school and receive immediate athletic financial aid.
Johnson in an email to reporters included a copy of a May 2 letter he received from Pitt. In that letter, Pitt's faculty athletics representative, James Irrgang, explained to Johnson why the university was allowing him to transfer to an ACC school.
Irrgang wrote that it was because of "the combination of your academic achievement of graduating Summa Cum Laude within three years of your initial full time enrollment and the exceptional service that you have provided to the community during your tenure at Pitt."
Despite those acknowledgments of Johnson's achievement, though, Pitt has refused to allow Johnson a full release that would allow him to compete immediately. Johnson in a recent interview said that UNC coach Roy Williams is fighting on his behalf.
And now Johnson is taking his case public, and arguing why he should be immediately eligible at UNC.
