NC Gov. Cooper asks NCAA president to allow UNC football’s Tez Walker to play
Well-known as a sports fan, Gov. Roy Cooper implored the NCAA to reverse its decision Wednesday and grant North Carolina wide receiver Tez Walker immediate eligibility to play for the Tar Heels this season.
Cooper sent a letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker, the former Massachusetts governor before taking the NCAA’s top job last January, supporting Walker’s bid for an appeal to the NCAA’s two-time transfer rule that makes players sit out a season at their new school.
“This is the first time I have taken such an action, but this is an unusual and compelling case amidst the backdrop of all the major changes happening in the NCAA,” Cooper wrote in the letter. “Nothing could be bigger or more important to Tez than the opportunity to get one of the finest university educations in the country at UNC and to compete in front of his family in Carolina Blue.”
Walker transferred from Kent State to UNC and enrolled in classes last Jan. 9, two days before the NCAA changed its rules to make it harder for athletes who transfer more than once in their college careers to become eligible without sitting out a season.
A former West Charlotte High School player, Walker initially planned to attend East Tennessee State in 2019 before a knee injury he suffered prior to his enrollment caused that school to delay his scholarship by one season. Walker instead enrolled at N.C. Central, planning to play in 2020.
But NCCU canceled that football season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Walker transferred to Kent State where he finally was able to play his first two seasons of college football.
After he was named all-Mid-American Conference last season, his head coach, offensive coordinator and position coach left Kent State for new jobs. Walker entered the transfer portal and decided to return home to North Carolina to play for the Tar Heels.
UNC coach Mack Brown said Tuesday that Walker’s initial approval for eligibility had been subsequently denied by the NCAA, which cited his previous transfer as the reason. UNC has filed an appeal on Walker’s behalf.
In his letter to Baker on Wednesday, Cooper joined Brown in pointing out that, in June, Kent State filed a transfer waiver with the NCAA in support of Walker’s immediate eligibility at UNC.
Like Brown and Walker, Cooper also pointed out the ailing health of Walker’s grandmother, who lives in Charlotte, as a reason he should be granted relief from the rule that requires him to sit out this season. Walker’s grandmother, who he said helped raise him, has never seen him play a college game in person. The Tar Heels open the season on Sept. 2 against South Carolina at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium.
“During your service as governor of Massachusetts, I admired your dogged pursuit of commonsense solutions to our thorniest problems,” Cooper wrote to Baker. “In your current service leading the NCAA, I have great hope that you will be able to bring that same thoughtful and balanced approach to the rapidly evolving world of college sports.”
This story was originally published August 9, 2023 at 6:46 PM.