Demond Williams Is What’s Wrong With The Transfer Portal

Demond Williams either can’t make up his mind or can’t stop changing his mind. The Washington Huskies quarterback, going into his junior year, is contemplating choosing his fourth college to play football for. He is an example of what is wrong with the NCAA transfer portal. In all fairness, he decommitted from Ole Miss to play for Arizona before he enrolled in college, so he never actually played there.

Williams then transferred from Arizona to Washington because head coach Jedd Fisch made that switch first. Where the story takes a puzzling turn is on January 6th, when the 19-year-old posted on his Instagram that he would be entering the transfer portal, a week after signing a contract to return to the Huskies. His motive for doing this is unclear, and he hasn’t officially filed paperwork yet, but according to his post, “I need to do what’s best for me and my future.”

Entitled Teenagers

This is clearly just another example of this TikTok generation trying to keep the spotlight on themselves as long as they can, and as frequently as they can. In his song Art Is Dead, Bo Burnham sings about a child acting out for attention and says, “When he grows up to be a comic or actor, he’ll be rewarded, for never maturing, for never understanding or learning, that every day can’t be about him.”

Burnham could add top prospect teenage athletes to that list. From announcing their college plans publicly when they are just sophomores in high school, to changing their minds in a public announcement as juniors, to mulling over a selection of hats as seniors, and then entering the transfer portal every year in college, these cries for mass attention are definitely signs of never maturing. This isn’t to say that kids shouldn’t use the transfer portal, just don’t abuse it.

For years, the crooked business entity known as the NCAA kept these kids locked up for four or more years. Once they chose a college, they weren’t allowed to leave until they graduated or turned pro. Then they were allowed to transfer schools, but they had to sit out a year, and the college could block certain schools if they wanted to. When the question was asked, “How come coaches can leave for another school and coach right away, but if a kid who’s loyal to the coach follows him, he has to sit?”, the NCAA finally came out with the transfer portal.

It was a vehicle for kids to leave a school if they felt it wasn’t the best for them without being penalized, and then became a way to start somewhere else if they weren’t good enough to start at their first choice school. It’s become a conduit for kids to put their services on auction after every season and transfer to the highest bidder, without the penalty of sitting out a year. It’s gotten to the point that universities have to sign these kids to contracts, like they are professionals. Williams has shown that even if they sign a contract, they don’t have to honor it if they don’t want to.

End Of My Demond Williams Rant

Washington won’t sit by and let this happen. They plan to pursue every legal avenue possible to force Williams to honor the contract he signed or not play football. When it comes to schools versus athletes or the NCAA versus athletes, I have always sided with the kids. This is becoming an embarrassment though, and at some point, the kids need to learn the definition of the word responsibility.

They won’t learn it in college, though, because it’s no secret that most of them don’t attend classes, just practice. If Washington wasn’t the best fit for Williams, I believe in him exercising the right to go somewhere else, but if it’s not the right situation for him, how did it become so a week after it was a great situation for him? There’s no doubt the NCAA will investigate if there was some behind-the-scenes tampering. Now, I’m just curious if he will pick a school, transfer from them before playing a snap, play at another university, and then transfer from there after the season. Sounds like a safe bet.