The UAAP’s problematic residency rule

It’s final.

So said the UAAP Tuesday when questions arose over its surprising new eligibility rule, which will now require graduating high school athletes from all sports transferring from one UAAP member school to another to sit out two years of residency before being allowed to play. As you all know, the announcement was met with harsh reactions on social media. Among the most vocal negative comments came from five-time defending men’s basketball champion Ateneo guard Kiefer Ravena, who minced no words about his distaste for the new rule on his Twitter page.

In a telephone interview with this writer on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) program Hardball Wednesday night, UAAP secretary-general and former national coach Junel Baculi clarified aspects of the rule. Baculi erroneously said that the vote was unanimous. Ateneo de Manila and the University of the Philippines voted against it. Adamson University, De La Salle University, Far Eastern University, University of the East, and University of Santo Tomas voted for immediate implementation.

Baculi, the athletic director of National University (the UAAP host which abstained from voting on the issue) admitted that the rule was primarily designed to protect the schools from poaching players from each other. He said that high school players who will transfer from the high school of one UAAP school to the college of another “can study first” for two years, then play even up to the maximum five years. An ironic statement coming from a school athletic director.

There are a few problems with the new rule. Primarily, it sends a message that the UAAP schools don’t trust each other, that they’re looking over their shoulders to keep their players in their schools, so they’d rather just eliminate the players’ freedom of choice. If you recall, for decades San Beda’s Red Cubs were the favorite target of many UAAP schools for getting polished players and building champion teams. The result was a very strong high school program that won NCAA junior titles practically every other year under Ato Badolato, but a college squad that did not win an NCAA basketball crown in 28 years. The school and its patrons internally decided to put their foot down and work to retain their players. It did not need a league rule which punishes success. San Beda took care of its own.

Secondly, the rule reads the intent of the player and his family. For example, my sons played for a small high school in Quezon City because they were offered basketball scholarships. The school once won a national interscholastic championship. My boys then wound up playing Team B basketball for Ateneo because the Blue Eagles had recruited heavily when they entered college. As six-foot guards, they had a good chance of making the roster of other UAAP schools. But they wanted to graduate from their parents’ alma mater because they wanted the same kind of education. If the new rule were in effect and they had been in another UAAP high school, their basketball dreams would have died prematurely, knowing that by their third year, the adjustment to their studies with basketball would have become more difficult. Worse, they might have given up their dream of continuing a family tradition and pursued basketball somewhere else. Worst of all, they may even have simply given up the sport they loved altogether, because someone else said they couldn’t play where they wanted.

Third, would a university really give a valuable scholarship to a player who might not even want to play anymore after sitting out two years? If a player were the maximum age of 19 in high school and sits out two years, he would only have three or four years of eligibility left, and his skills would have deteriorated. Besides, what if his alma mater did not have the course he wanted? And why would the player want to sit out two years when he could go to the NCAA after just one year’s residency? Given that the NCAA is also on television and has many coaches connected with PBA teams, the thought would become more appealing. 

Fourth, rules have a way of making people more creative in skirting them. The result of the new rule will simply be earlier poaching. Foreign players have been finishing their high school in UAAP schools as far back as the 1990’s to get around the residency rule. What’s to stop the UAAP schools from going after players earlier? Now, they will simply move their timetable back two years, and go after outgoing second-year players, harming the UAAP juniors program. Or why not even go all the way down to grade school and stir up the free market economy there? This will, in turn, eventually spur parents and so-called agents to negotiate harder for kids who haven’t even sprouted body hair. There will in turn be more pressure on the players at a younger age. This is not a pipe dream. It’s already been happening here and there. Now, it will be the only way around the new rule.

So instead of becoming more competitive and raising their standards, the athletics programs of five UAAP schools decided to simply curtail the freedom of its teenaged athletes with a rule already doing that to college players. Each school could simply have done something on its own to raise its standards of recruitment or found out what would make them more appealing to players. Instead, they summarily dictated that a young athlete cannot play for the school he or she chooses. The athlete, who has already sacrificed and brought honor to the school in exchange for an education, must stay, or face the consequence of not being allowed to play in his or her home league for two years, the prime development of an athlete’s career. They already chose to play there for high school. Now they have to stay, atrophy at another member school, or leave. You can imagine how that went down.

Young people are always testing their boundaries, and they don’t like being unnecessarily constrained. Holding them tightly would only make them rebel even more, especially when they question or don’t understand the intention of a rule. If they disagree with the agenda behind the rule, they will simply ignore it, or go where the rules are more acceptable. Of course the UAAP can do whatever it wants, unless a government entity governing minors steps in to defend some of the younger players. Playing sports is all about finding yourself, developing your personhood and freedom of expression. We’re all meant to be able to do that wherever we want.

But not according to those who voted for the new rule. What’s mine is mine, and you can’t have it.