The transfer portal, which athletes use when they are transferring schools for sports, will open its second spring window on May 1.

The transfer portal was introduced in October 2018 to make it easier on players, sports organizations and colleges to complete the process of an athlete transferring from one school to another. When players enter the transfer portal, they are entering their name into a database that tells other schools and coaches they are interested in playing elsewhere.

In August 2022, a major rule change granted athletes the ability to transfer more than once, whereas, originally, they were allowed to transfer only once. Another rule that was implemented in August 2022 was to set specific times that athletes were allowed to enter the transfer portal. Those times depend on when each sport is in season:

• Fall sports: 45-day window beginning the day after championship selections are made in their sport
• Spring sports: 15-day windows from April 15-30 and May 1-15
• Winter sports: 60-day window beginning the day after championship selections are made in their sport

The transfer portal change happened for several reasons. Sports Illustrated wrote that it was because the NCAA wanted to “rein in the number of players using the transfer portal, a figure that has exceeded 2,000  just in the first transfer window after the 2022 college football season.”

Many big-time sports analysts and fans believe this change comes to make transferring schools easier for athletes overall and to give them more than opportunities.

After these rule changes, a major increase in transfer portal usage occurred everywhere, including at UT Martin.

Ashley Bynum, associate athletic director for internal operations at UT Martin, said, “We had a total of 66 student athletes enter the portal for the 21-22 academic year; we hadapproximately 450 athletes on campus last year, so about 15% of athletes used the portal.”

She also provided a breakdown of athletes per sport who used the portal:

• Baseball: 8
• Football: 22
• Men’s basketball: 3
• Cross country/track: 11
• Softball: 3
• Women’s basketball: 8
• Volleyball: 2
• Soccer: 5
• Tennis: 2

UT Martin Athletics Director Kurt McGuffin said the transfer portal has certainly made it easier for athletes to transfer.

“I think it is good to give student athletes some freedom. I perhaps would like some restrictions on how many times they could move, unless there was a reason out of their control like a head coach change or family matters,” McGuffin said.

“I am worried about the fanbase and donors losing interest as they will not see consistency year to year with rosters. They may not want to continually keep up with new faces as I do think they like to see athletes grow and develop in front of their eyes over the four to five years a student is at UTM. I think in a smaller community like Martin that is important. Our fans really enjoy going to high school events as they get to see kids grow up and those relationships are very important,” he added.

UT Martin athletes Annemarie Gutierrez, a softball player, and Grayson Campbell, a football player, also discussed the transfer portal.

“The transfer portal is a tricky thing, as, in my personal experience, the transfer portal was tough. If you are not a SEC or BIG10 athlete, the chances of getting picked up by schools that are the caliber you’d like are slimmer,” said Gutierrez, a sophomore MMSC major from Orange, California. “I think when coaches see the names of certain athletes in the portal multiple times over the years, they begin to be hesitant to reach out to them simply because there’s always the question of why several schools hadn’t worked out for them.”

Campbell, a freshman Chemistry major from Lebanon, Tennessee, agreed.

“The portal can help an athlete’s reputation in a large way, because you generally see athletes transfer up. Not many athletes use the transfer portal to drop down to a smaller division, school, etc. This gives athletes more exposure, thus increasing their reputation,” Campbell said.

“That being said, the portal can have negative effects on athletes for a number of reasons such as from a coaching position, you don’t want someone who is notorious for jumping from program to program. Regardless of a person’s individual athletic performance, a coach wants someone who is going to be a good person off the field as team chemistry and a good locker room guy is very desirable,” he added.

For more information on the transfer portal, go to: ncsasports.org, on3.com, bestcolleges.com, Gridironheroics.com, espn.com or si.com.