College sports is big on loyalty.
Be loyal to your coaches and teammates, athletes are told. Most of all, be true to your school.
It’s enough to make you want to hum a college fight song, but then you think about Tony Freeman and no longer feel like it.
Freeman is, or was, a member of Iowa’s basketball team. Next season the former St. Joseph star will be on someone else’s campus as a member of someone else’s team.
This change of address was Freeman’s idea, but not really. If that sounds confusing, welcome to big-time college athletics.
Freeman asked for and received his scholarship release from Iowa on May 2, but he did it only after coach Todd Lickliter made it clear, if only through hints, that his future playing time was as secure as a subprime mortgage.
Freeman, a 6-foot-1-inch guard, took the hint, so now he’s taking a powder, even if he was Iowa’s leading scorer and even if he is about to become a senior. Those two factors make his case unusual, but there’s nothing unusual about college coaches “running off” athletes.
Running off is the sometimes subtle art of discarding a once-coveted recruit. It may be because he didn’t live up to his billing or because he wasn’t a good match with the coach who replaced the coach who signed him.
The latter is what happened to Freeman, who played two years for Steve Alford and last season for Lickliter. NCAA Division I men’s basketball coaches get just 13 scholarship players, and coaches can’t afford many who don’t fit in, especially when a new coach is trying to turn over his roster and install a new system.
So, according to Freeman, Lickliter asked after the season if he had considered transferring. The coach also told Freeman his fast-paced style of play didn’t fit Iowa’s half-court offense.
Lickliter didn’t tell Freeman he should leave or threaten to yank his scholarship, which he could have done because scholarships are renewable annually at the pleasure of the school. He instead did what many coaches do — employ a gentle shove and hope the player is adept at reading between the lines.
Freeman, who played an average of 35 minutes a game last season while earning third-team all-Big Ten honors in a vote of coaches, got the message, which he had never seen coming.
Lickliter declined an interview request when news of Freeman’s release broke, and a spokesman said he was unavailable late last week.
“Tony is a glaring example of what sometimes happens when there’s a coaching change and the new coach doesn’t fit your style,” said Van Coleman, national recruiting analyst for CSTV.com. “Normally someone with one year left wouldn’t be leaving, especially a guy who had been starting.”
A new coach can be in a tricky situation with a player such as Freeman. The guard played out of control at times, which frustrated Lickliter, who has signed six recruits for next season.
“The coaches on numerous occasions said, ‘He really doesn’t always do what we want on the floor,’ and I know they talked to him about it,” Coleman said.
Lickliter’s realistic options were to try to get Freeman to leave or say nothing and hope the guard didn’t become an attitude problem in the face of sharply reduced playing time.
Freeman told his coach he was willing to do whatever it took to make their marriage work, yet admitted afterward he would struggle to cope with extensive bench time. That’s likely why after going through a brief bout of anger he says he’s grateful Lickliter took a more honest approach.
“There’s no animosity,” Freeman said Friday.
He isn’t even angry he’ll have to sit out next season at his new address under transfer rules even though he never wanted to leave Iowa in the first place. Those rules always seemed like a necessary evil to avoid potential roster chaos when coaches are fired or leave on their own, but when a kid who has stayed out of trouble leaves a school because his coach wants it, the rules stink.
That’s especially true for a senior-to-be such as Freeman, who now has his education and three years worth of friendships disrupted.
The NCAA, meanwhile, continues to have it both ways. It allows a system in which a high school senior who signs a national letter of intent with a school must go there for at least a year or — unless he can get a release — likely face penalties, even if the coach he signed with is gone before he arrives.
You sign “with the institution” and not with a particular coach, the letter states. Tony Freeman, though, has learned the hard way it really is about the coach after all.
He also has learned that in college sports, loyalty is often a one-way street.
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btemkin@tribune.com
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