How Does NCAA Eligibility Work Vis-a-Vis Injury Redshirt Seasons? (A Case Study)

NCAA eligibility is not a straight-forward endeavor. A complicated mess that requires deep “analysis” and lots of hearings to unravel, the calculation of how many years college athletes get became even more complicated after the awarding of the COVID-19 5th years of eligibility.

This week’s NCAA Championship meet has sparked conversation about Virginia’s Jasmine Nocentini and her eligibility situation. Nocentini began her career as an All-American at Florida International, joining the Panthers from her native Italy in January 2020.

After finishing the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons with FIU, she transferred to Northwestern ahead of the 2021-2022 season. There she finished 3rd at Big Tens in the 50 free (21.78), 5th in the 100 free (47.76), and 4th in the 200 free (1:45.56).

Her times would have qualified her for the 2022 NCAA Championships, but she didn’t swim at that meet.

She returned for the fall semester for the Wildcats, racing in three meets: a tri against UIC and Illinois, a dual meet against Michigan, and the Purdue Invitational. More importantly, those three meets add up to five dates of competition.

Swimmers who only swim three meets in the fall semester can generally apply to have that season of eligibility returned to them. A newly-adopted “hardship waiver” that took effect in August 2022 says that if an athlete competes in less than 30% of the maximum allowed dates of competition + 1, then they can apply for a medical hardship waiver under these circumstances:

• The injury occurred in the first half of the season.
• There is contemporaneous medical documentation of the injury from a treating physician that demonstrates incapacitation through the remainder of the season.
• The injury or illness occurs on or after August 1, 2022.

A high percentage of elite college athletes are pushing through some kind of nagging injuries at any given moment, so documenting an early-season injury is not often a high bar to clear.

The new version of the rule applies the same underlying principles as the former rule from 2018, but simplifies analysis of playing schedule by applying the standard to the legislated maximum competition dates.

In swimming & diving, the maximum dates of competition allowed are 16. There are exceptions for things like international tours, conference and NCAA Championship meets, and unscored exhibition meets, but none of those things count toward this calculation.

So 16 + 1 = 17. For swimming, that means the limit to qualify for a hardship waiver is 5.1 dates of competition, which rounds down to 5 dates.

That’s the exact number Nocentini swam.

There are a lot of rumors and misconceptions about hardship waivers and when they do and don’t apply, or which years they do and don’t apply to.

Among the biggest misconceptions stems from the COVID-19 5th year – but not the way you might expect. There were lots of news reports about high school basketball players rushing to graduate early to take advantage of the free year of eligibility and join their college programs for the spring semester.

These reports weren’t quite precise, though – they led many to believe that there was eligibility being saved by not playing the fall semester. That isn’t the case, it was just sort of a misnomering in the early days of the COVID 5th year that everyone is familiar with. So Nocentini doesn’t get that first season for FIU, where she arrived in January, back, but she does get the 2022-2023 season back, probably.

It’s unclear where in the waiver process she is – usually these things are adjudicated after all regular eligibility is exhausted – but when she announced her transfer, the indication from Virginia coaches was that she was planning on two seasons with the Cavaliers.

If she races next season (plans change), when the dust clears, she will have used five net-seasons of eligibility across six seasons of competition, taking advantage of a pair of NCAA waivers.

As for her competitive results, Nocentini has built upon the success of her last two stops in one season at Virginia. She split 25.72 on the breaststroke leg of Virginia’s winning 200 medley relay, which was just .04 seconds behind Hannah Bach and Mona McSharry for the fastest in the field, finished 3rd individually in the 50 free in 21.10, led off Virginia’s winning 200 free relay in 21.26, and is the 2nd qualifier into finals of the 100 breaststroke.