Tyler Corbitt was interested in leaving The Citadel baseball team after the school year. The college’s transfer policy is already keeping him from playing.
According to The Post and Courier, Corbitt entered the NCAA’s transfer portal this week, giving him the ability to speak with other schools about transferring. The second baseman is scheduled to graduate from The Citadel this spring, then would have two years of eligibility as a graduate transfer.
The NCAA allows players in the transfer portal to continue playing for their current team. However, The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, has a policy that says players in the transfer portal are immediately removed from the team.
“The student-athlete will be notified by the coach and sport supervisor that they are consequently being released from their sport program effective immediately,” the policy reads, according to The Post and Courier. “This means the student-athletes will no longer be a member of the sport program and will not have access to our athletic department services. A written confirmation of their removal from the program will be sent to the student-athlete by the department.”
Citadel athletic director Mike Capaccio said Thursday that the policy has been enacted in the past.
“We have a policy in place for all our student-athletes, that when they enter the portal, they move on from the activities we provide,” Capaccio said. “We’ve had several baseball players go through this already, several football players go through this. So nothing has really changed and all the cadet-athletes know where they are at.
“We’re 100 percent behind the young man who made that decision. But it’s not just him, we probably had 30 before that made that decision.”
The NCAA allows for such policies, informing athletes that enter the portal that their current school isn’t obligated to take them back as a student-athlete.
