For most of his young life, Polk County baseball and football star Jared Allen never had a moment's indecision about which university eventually would win his considerable athletic talents.
"I always knew where I wanted to go," he said. "I wanted to go to Tennessee."
But as this week's early signing period for college baseball and other sports grew closer, Allen took a thoughtful step backward.
He read and listened to numerous stories about UT baseball coach Todd Raleigh's uncertain future and possible NCAA violations within the program. He strongly considered scholarship offers from Middle Tennessee and Belmont.
"That's probably one reason [that committing] took as long as it did," Allen said Thursday, the day after the ink dried on his national letter of intent with UT. "I wanted to make sure. But then I realized I wanted to play for Tennessee regardless of the coach or situation."
Allen's reasoning is exactly what the NCAA wants to hear from its student-athletes. Choose the school, not the coach, it cautions. Letters of intent are normally binding whether or not the coach exits before the new signee arrives on campus or the school is placed on probation.
The NCAA does allow universities to release freshmen without the penalty of a one-year transfer rule for various reasons, and on occasion schools do just that. But more times than not, the athlete is forced to sit out a season if he leaves, which may be one reason why recent NCAA statistics show the Division I transfer rate to be less than 8 percent.
But are the rules fair? As McCallie basketball coach Daniel Wadley noted earlier this week, "Most players are driven to programs by personalities and style of play. If a coach leaves, I believe they should let those kids out of the scholarship without penalty."
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic director Rick Hart understandably argues that allowing a blanket exit of signees every time a coach moves on or is terminated could destroy an entire sport at that school.
"We all know that the coach will have the most impact on a student-athlete's decision about where he or she signs," Hart said. "It would be naïve to take a stance that doesn't recognize that. But you also don't want to put an incoming coach in a situation where they can't succeed because they've lost a whole recruiting class."
Hart knows this conundrum better than most. Two years ago he watched a football program already ravaged by Academic Progress Rate sanctions start over with Russ Huesman as coach after Rodney Allison resigned.
Then came last spring, when women's basketball coach Wes Moore left the program for East Carolina, only to return a few days later.
In both cases, Hart feared the loss of several players to transfer. In each case, he took a slightly different tact to largely avoid that potential problem.
"With football we simply asked the team to give the new staff an opportunity," Hart recalled. "After spring practice, we'd have conversations about releases if that's what the players wanted."
Said Huesman on Friday: "I met individually with every player, and not one of them told me they wanted to leave the program. They all talked about how much they loved Chattanooga - the community, the school, their professors. They all wanted to remain on scholarship, which was what we told them we wanted. So there were never any problems, which still amazes me."
But Huesman was hired in December 2008, more than six weeks before that school year's football signing day. In the case of Moore and the Lady Mocs last spring, UTC already had a recruiting class in hand from the early signing period.
"We were very pro-active addressing things with the team and signees," Hart said. "We told them the kind of values we were seeking in a coach. Fortunately, Wes came back and we never had to look for another coach."
But that didn't mean incoming freshman forward Destiny Bramblett wasn't briefly concerned.
"I kept thinking, 'What am I going to do?'" the Radcliff, Ky., native said before Thursday's practice at McKenzie Arena. "Are all the other freshmen going to stay? Coach Moore told me great things about UTC, but you usually sign with the schoool because of the coach."
In this case, Destiny's mother Jackie asked her daughter to remain calm. She told her everything happens for a reason. Sure enough, Moore soon called to say he was staying.
"That," Destiny said, "took a lot of stress off my shoulders."
The NCAA understandably makes some transfers less stressful if a school is placed on probation. Though individual schools are still allowed to assess whether or not to allow incoming freshmen or junior college transfers an immediate exit without a one-year transfer penalty under such circumstances, student-athletes on campus can have an easier out.
If the probation denies a current student-athlete any chance of participating in future postseason play, that student may transfer immediately without penalty.
As an example, Tennessee junior defensive lineman Malik Jackson was allowed to transfer from Southern Cal over the summer and play immediately because the Trojans' two-year bowl ban would have prevented him from further postseason play at USC.
With both the Vols' basketball program in general and coach Bruce Pearl in particular facing possible NCAA sanctions, McCallie junior guard Cordell James - who attended UT's Elite Camp over the summer - says he's closely monitoring both the UT situation and other schools he's interested in.
"I keep up with a lot of that stuff on the Internet," he said. "You definitely want to go to a college where that's not an issue."
Baylor School senior quarterback Jacob Huesman eliminated the recruiting issue early by deciding to play for his father at UTC, despite heavy recruitment from a number of FBS schools, including Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech.
Though NCAA rules prohibit the Mocs coach from discussing his son's situation, his general recruiting pitch should be strongly considered for any future college recruits, wherever they may eventually sign.
"I believe 100 percent that you should go to the school because of the school," said Huesman, a 1982 UTC grad. "If you're comparing School A and School B and your 11th or 12th line is the coach, that's OK. But it should be way down the list because coaches come and go. They always have and they always will. But if you're at a university you love, you can't go wrong."