Well, we are off and running on our quest to transfer. The Coach expressed disappointment, but said he would not stand in the way of transfer approval. (From what I've heard, it's very rare for a school to deny a transfer request).
A wrinkle in the process is that we have to preliminarily contact other schools. They will either say "sorry, we don't need you" or "we would like to talk but can't until you get the permission letter." Then he have to givehis current school's AD the name of the other school that wants to talk and get an indivualized permission to contact letter for each school. It's extra work, but as we know the process is complicated to discourage transferring on a whim.
This is a "dead week" meaning that there can be no in person contacts. While telephone calls are permitted according to the person I talked to at the NCAA, many coaches don't do that either since all they can say is "get the permission letter." So we expect that the process won't be going full speed until Friday,the beginning of the Summer late-signing period, which doesn't officially apply to transfers, but is the schedule by which recruiting coordinators seem to plan their efforts. Many schools won't really focus on the issue until the season is over and, for some, until after the draft, when they begin to assess what, if anything, they need to accomplish in the late signing period. So I guess we're in for a tense couple of months.
We'll focus on schools that expressed an interest last year, since it is impractical to contact everyone. He wants to go to a Southeast US Div 1, and is a RS Freshman OF, who was ranked among the top 50 OF in the Country by a major rating service last year, and who has gotten stronger and faster since. I will continue to make occasional posts about his progress and our experience with the transfer process, in the hope that it will help anyone else going through the same thing.
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