Memo to NCAA: If You Care for Student-Athletes, Stop “Koltering”

If you follow college football, and don’t know “Koltering,” the term was coined when Jim Harbaugh, then head coach at Stanford, offered a scholarship to Kain Kolter—and withdrew it when he recruited a better QB. Note aside, it’s easy to see how Kolter became a labor activist, isn’t it? Now Harbaugh is at it again, this time withdrawing a longstanding scholarship that Michigan made to OT Erik Swenson. Harbaugh wasn’t even a man about it—he told his assistant to contact Swenson with the bad news. Adding insult to injury, Swenson had successfully recruited other players to Michigan.

Memo to NCAA: Your premise in numerous player lawsuits is that these young people are student-athletes who signed a grant-in-aid agreement—emphasize, agreement, to attend a certain school. Agreements are made when Party A makes an offer to Party B, and Party B accepts the offer. Harbaugh and Michigan will say, of course, that no G-I-A was signed. That’s two weeks off. But see the doctrine of detrimental reliance, a legal principle that accounts for this type of grossly unfair behavior: “In order to prevail on a promissory estoppel [detrimental reliance] claim and have a promise enforced, you must show the following: A promise was made. [Yup, by Michigan.] Relying on the promise was reasonable or foreseeable [Yup, Swenson was so over-the-moon, he recruited for Michigan.] There was actual and reasonable reliance on the promise [Yup, Swenson stopped being recruited by other schools.] The reliance was detrimental [Yup, Swenson has to shop for a new school and football program on short notice].