New Arkansas head basketball coach Mike Anderson has proved to be as petty as the NCAA, and Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley (not a group one should aspire to be associated with).  Since the firing of John Pelphrey, leading Razorback scorer Rotnei Clarke has asked to be released to transfer to another school twice, and has twice been turned down by the child-like Anderson.  This follows in the footsteps of Volunteer football coach Dooley refusing to release running back Bryce Brown (who was recruited to UT by Lane Kiffin), who is now at Kansas State.

This practice, quite simply, should be outlawed by the NCAA.  Coaches are allowed to move from school to school (although at times there is a buyout clause connected to a coach leaving one school for another), so why all the fuss and handcuffing of the student-athletes?  Clarke, who is a rising senior, will have to sit out a year, while paying his own way, and then have one year of eligibility remaining if he opts to leave Arkansas in his rear-view mirror.

Anderson, Dooley, and their ilk need to grow up and accept the fact that most times athletes choose to play for a coach, not the school, and when the coach who originally signed the athlete is fired or leaves for another school, it's only fair and right that the athletes be granted the same freedom of movement.