Decoding All the 'Shirts' in College Sports

Summary

In this episode, Naki discusses the positive side of gray-shirting and the benefits it can offer in terms of development and preparation. He then explains the concept of red-shirting and the eligibility clock, highlighting the reasons for red-shirting and its advantages. Naki also clarifies the terminology used for different stages of redshirt years. Additionally, he covers other types of shirts, such as medical red-shirt, blue shirt, pink shirt, green shirt, and the COVID shirt. The episode concludes with Naki encouraging listeners to reach out for guidance and wishing them luck on signing day.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction and Positive Side of Gray-Shirting
03:40 - Red-Shirting and Eligibility Clock
08:09 - Advantages of Red-Shirting
09:35 - Understanding Redshirt Terminology
12:02 - Other Types of Shirts: Medical Red-Shirt, Blue Shirt, Pink Shirt, Green Shirt, and COVID Shirt
18:23 - Conclusion and Signing Day

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Transcript

Naki (00:16.084)
Ahem.

Naki (00:19.988)
So last episode, we talked a little bit about grayshirts and I had a former colleague, former teammate, current friend reach out to me and was like, hey man, you could probably focus on the positive side a little bit more. He didn't say that directly, but I knew what he was saying. But yeah, so last episode, I talked a lot about grayshirts and I think I probably focused on the negative narrative of that a little too much. So.

When I got that feedback, I was like, you know what, let's talk a little bit more about the positive side that may come from gray -shirting. Okay, again, I'm not necessarily agreeing with the terminology. All these shirts aren't technically used by the NCAA, but let's entertain it. Let's talk through it. So on a positive note, if you get a grayshirt offer from a school, it could be positive.

in the sense that it gives you a full year to develop without starting your clock. Okay. Now when I say a full year, obviously referring to the season. So it gives you a full season. Okay. When you finish your high school season all the way through that first academic semester or season, it would give you that basically that whole entire time to develop. Now that could be developed, uh, you know,

mentally, physically, academically, but there's development in that process that can take place. Now, assume that you sat out the first full season. And again, I want you to put yourself in the scenario. So assume you sat out that full season. You avoided injury, you avoided the nagging and...

It's just absolute turmoil that happens to your body during the seasons, which is not necessarily injury, but you lose a lot of weight, you lose a lot of muscle. And the entire season, instead of you playing, you just trained. You got ahead on classes and you prepared yourself both for field play and both academically and mentally and maturely. You just developed for that following year. You would be in a really good starting point come spring ball.

Naki (02:42.26)
if that's when you are able to be on scholarship. All right, so that's like, to me, it's a massive positive and I understand where my friend was coming from for sure. And another point that he brought up that isn't technically considered a grayshirt, but I mean, under rule, it is fairly the same thing, is athletes that choose to serve, or student athletes that choose to serve a two year.

mission or they have some sort of religious affiliation in which they go serve. Again, I'm speaking more towards the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, so LDS kids, or they choose to go serve a two -year mission. They basically delay their start, which gives them two years before their clock starts. So sitting out can definitely have its positives. And all that really means is that you're delaying the start of your eligibility clock.

Now, all this grayshirt talk has sparked a lot of questions. And most of those questions are surrounded around red shirts now. It's like, well, okay, well, you talked about gray shirts, but how does red shirt work? And this is more common terminology used. Again, I don't know if it's a technically speaking official terminology, but in regards to the NCAA and eligibility, but here's what you need to know about it. In essence, there is a red shirt year.

that you can choose to sit out or delay participation in a games, in any games. Now, the origination of the red shirt actually dates back to the 1930s. I want to say 1937, an athlete named Warren Olson of the University of Nebraska, Cornhuskers, he requested to sit out his sophomore season due to the number of experienced players that were ahead of him. And it said that the actual term red shirt,

refers to the red practice Jersey that they gave him because all he did was practice and supposedly there was no number on it. It was just, Hey, you're a practice player. You wear this red Jersey. And so that's where, that's where it comes from. That's where the term redshirt comes from. I didn't, didn't take away from his years of eligibility because he wasn't playing any games, but he benefited, benefited from it because one, the athletes that were ahead of him ended up getting out of their eligibility faster and.

Naki (05:07.22)
I wouldn't say faster, but they got out of it. And then he was set and developed to take over for them the very next year. So to understand a redshirt better, it helps to know, and I kind of referred to it a couple of times already, but it helps to know what an eligibility clock is. Now this gets talked a lot about on this podcast. So listen closely. So when I refer to an eligibility clock or I talk about a student athlete,

and his clock. What I'm referring to is that they have five years to be at the next level. So they have five years to play college sports. Four of those years, you are allowed to compete full time. And one of those years, you must sit out. And that is considered your red shirt year. It doesn't matter what level you are at when you start playing. As soon as you are enrolled,

as a full -time student athlete or even student, meaning that you are taking 12 credit hours, typically four, three credit courses, or three credit courses, you start your clock. Okay, so 12 credit hours, which usually means four, three credit or three hour courses. That's when your clock starts. Now,

There are reasons for a red shirt. Lots of reasons. Red shirts, they happen for several reasons, but most commonly, a red shirt is for a freshman that's coming in and they sit out their first year of competition for development. Now, they do this because when I say development, that can mean, hey, an athlete sits out for physical development or...

They sit out for athletic development, the skills that they need to compete at that level. They may sit out because mentally or from a maturity standpoint, they need to develop. And it may be a combination of all of those. It may just be that, hey, they need to acclimate to the university, the city in which that university is in, just being a student athlete in general, because it is a lot more time consuming and difficult than they would have realized coming in initially.

Naki (07:33.458)
So.

Naki (07:41.14)
Again, it could mean that they're just coming down to shake off all the dumb freshman decisions or they need a year to understand the game of football better, to understand how that team plays, whether it be offensive or defensive playbook. In whatever case it is, it's usually meant for development. Now, what's cool about it is that it maximizes your opportunity in college. So it gives you five full years to be at that level.

Now, if you're wanting to be an NFL guy, another year to develop can be big. Have people done it in less? Yes, that has happened. But one full extra year to develop, I mean, that's a big deal. That's a really big deal. Now, one other thing that isn't commonly talked about for everyone that isn't in the college space, but it can be a huge advantage academically. Now, most guys have completed...

their undergraduate degree in those five years. However, fewer, although there are a few, they are very, very smart, they complete all of their undergraduate and also part of their graduate or all of their graduate degree, so their master's degree in those five years. So, to me it's a huge leg up on life because if you're on a scholarship, you're a scholarship athlete,

and you walk away with having both your undergrad and your master's degree paid for, that is amazing. Like you did it right, all right? So awesome. But let's understand a little bit more about the terminology of where you stand after you decide to redshirt. And let's look at the actual, what they're named. Because I think it gets confusing, we're like, well, what's a redshirt sophomore? What's a redshirt blah, blah, blah...

So let's just talk about it in chronological order. So year one, you start out, you're a redshirt, you redshirted your first year, okay? Means you're a freshman in college, you're redshirting on the football team or whatever sport you're playing. Now year two, you play, you're officially a redshirt freshman, okay? Meaning you are a sophomore in school, but a freshman in NCAA eligibility. Now year three,

Naki (10:04.532)
you're a red shirt sophomore, meaning you're a junior in school, but a sophomore on the field. And then so on, so forth, pretty much until your last year, which is your fifth year to play, you are considered a fifth year senior. Now, if you're one of those diamonds in the rough, where you come in your freshman year and you just ball out during camp and they're like, this guy is going to be playing on Saturdays, you are a true freshman.

meaning that you started right when you got there. When your eligibility clock started, that freshman year, you're ready to go, you're a true freshman, you were playing and making a difference. Now, this is where things get a little bit interesting. So, if you were a true freshman, you then are considered a sophomore, right, true sophomore, junior, senior, and if you played four years straight,

your fifth year is irrelevant. It's out the window. You don't get it because you have graduated. You moved on. Your last year isn't a year to just not play. So they basically burn it, so to speak. Now in 2018, the NCAA approved that the athletes who are red shirting can compete in up to four games without burning a red shirt year. Like their actual full red shirt year.

So any competition in more than four games would forfeit your red shirt and it would count as a year of competition. That is something to remember if you are offered a scholarship and if you go down that route, not even if it's, even if you're a walk -on, just understand that your clock starts. So shifting gears a little bit, there are a few shirts that have been asked about since my very last episode. So I just, I just thought, you know what, let's just, uh,

Let's cover them all. Let's cover all the shirts. Again, these aren't official NCAA terminologies, but we're just going to cover all the shirts and two of which we've already covered. We talked about the red shirt. We talked about the grayshirt, but another common shirt that is heard of often is a medical red shirt, which is technically still a red shirt. But what it means is that if you're injured within the, within the first half of the season, technically within the first four games, but within the first half of the season,

Naki (12:30.196)
you could appeal to get that year of eligibility back. Now it's not always granted, but in some instances it is. So you would basically, let's say you came in as a true freshmen, you played, and then the second year sophomore you played, but then got injured. You could appeal to get that back or submit a waiver to get that back. All right. Again, it's not always granted and it's a little bit tricky and you have to get the, uh,

Whoever your NCAA eligibility person is on campus from a compliance standpoint, usually gets involved with that. There's a lot of writing letters and it's a lot. But yeah, medical red shirt, everybody. Now, here's one who is a little bit weird and I haven't necessarily heard this term, blue shirt. And I don't necessarily know if I've ever seen this happen on any team that I've been a part of, but basically there is a loophole that was discovered.

first by New Mexico state university in Las Cruces, New Mexico. But what they did is they told, I don't know if even they told an athlete because technically speaking, a blue shirt is giving a scholarship to a walk -on athlete who was non -recruited. Okay. I know this sounds really strange, but what New Mexico did is to avoid over signing during that year's class.

Technically they had a kid that came on to campus, was enrolled in school. They, he was walked on. They never recruited him, so to speak. They never recruited him. And then all of a sudden when school started, they put him on scholarship. Now, when I say recruited to give some reference here, you are recruited. You are considered recruited if the school has provided an official visit to the campus.

They've arranged an in -person or off -campus contact with the coach, or they have sent you some form of national letter of intent or some sort of written scholarship offer. All right, you are then considered recruited if one of those things have happened. So somehow, someway, schools have found out that, hey, these guys won't count towards my initial numbers of this recruiting class.

Naki (14:58.676)
If I haven't recruited him, but he's at my school and I just bring him on as a walk on, and then I give him a scholarship after the fact, then he technically counts towards next year's numbers, initial numbers. It's really strange. Like I said, it's a little bit foreign to me. I've never actually had to have dealt with this. I've never dealt with it. I've never really seen it, but it was a pretty unique loophole to get yourself out of an over-signed class. It's unique if you're in a college program.

The next one that came up was a pink shirt. And this was actually really unique, but a female student athlete who takes a year off to have a baby. I think that's pretty awesome. You get that year back. Now I've never seen this happen because I've never dealt with female sports before. So yeah, that's completely new to me. Had no clue, but I do think it is amazing and awesome that a female student athlete can do that. I imagine, yeah.

Let's just not get into that. So, and then one thing that is becoming a little bit more popular as a shirt, I've never actually heard this one used before, but a green shirt, which is technically another made up one, but it's defining an early enrollee, which is basically a mid -year signee. So meaning that during the December signing period, you enrolled mid -year.

And you started practice come that basically started school and practice the spring after you signed. So December you signed and then January you're starting classes, you're working out with the team, you're practicing when spring ball comes and it is extremely beneficial because it doesn't necessarily count towards your clock. Like you don't get penalized for, for being an overachiever and starting early. So you get a,

full semester of acclimation before you start an actual season, which is amazing. Huge perks. So, uh, since we're at it, I might as well talk about the COVID shirt. Hopefully there's some people out there that rolled their eyeballs. There's not an actual COVID shirt. I'm just kidding. But that was an actual thing that happened during COVID. All the athletes that were current.

Naki (17:27.188)
student athletes during COVID years got an additional year of eligibility. So that pretty much covers it. That's all the shirts that I know of. If anybody has heard of any other shirts, feel free to let me know. I've been blown away by the number of shirts there actually are. When none of these are commonly, I mean, other than red shirt, none of them are really truly used. So there you go. There you have it. Those are the shirts. Again,

If you got more, let me know. If you have questions about any of the shirts, hit me up on social media. If I don't have the answer, I'll find it for you. But yeah, I've been getting back to people really well on Instagram, probably most. So go there first and do me a favor while you're there. Follow, hit that follow button, please. And also share it. That'd be phenomenal. A lot of people have been doing that and there's been a lot of growth there. But what I've realized over these last...

couple weeks is that there have been a lot of questions leading into signing day, which happens in a few days. So good luck to all of you. I hope you all end up where you want to end up. If you haven't ended up or you're not going to end up where you don't end up where you're going or wanting to end up, let me know. Let's have a conversation about it. All right. I'm going to be honest with you and we're going to, yeah, we'll help you get some things figured out. I've been having a lot of those conversations. So.

Love you guys. I'm out.