(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the final in a six-part series centering on the coming St. Bonaventure men’s basketball season from the five writers from the Times Herald and Bradford Era who will be contributing to the Bona coverage this year. Today: Athletic Director Joe Manhertz discusses navigating the transfer portal and the newly-instituted Name, Image and Likeness financial opportunities for college athletes. The first two parts of this series were incorrectly labeled in The Era. Part I can be found in Oct. 22’s edition, while Part II is in Oct. 24’s edition. The latter was incorrectly labeled as Part I).

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — By the time Joe Manhertz accepted the Athletic Director’s position at St. Bonaventure in August of 2021, he was all too familiar with the NCAA’s new transfer portal which had turned the athletic landscape into what coaches called the “wild west” as players transferred from school-to-school with impunity.

Then, only two months before he took the job, the NCAA struck again, inaugurating a name, image and likeness statute — NIL for short — which allowed college players to make money off those three identifiers.

Both the transfer portal and the NIL possibilities have taken much of Manhertz’s focus in his first full year as AD.

OF THE PORTAL, he sees it as more fair to the athletes, though coaches have a love-hate relationship with it as unhappy players can leave a school at the drop of playing time.

“It’s something that we now have to understand … kids have more power and say in what their options are,” Manhertz said. “A couple of years ago this kid tried to transfer from St. Joe’s and couldn’t get a release (from the school). Now, we don’t have any say in whether a kid stays or goes.

“It was really one-sided for the schools where it was a guaranteed four-year contract, now a scholarship is a one-year contract with renewal each year. We have to release a kid (if he wants to go) and that puts it on even ground. The NCAA has gone a bit more kid-friendly and more permissive and it’s something we have to deal with … we have to change and adapt to make sure we stay relevant.”

THE NIL is a bit different.

“It’s an opportunity for kids to make money off their name, image and likeness (and) we’re exploring all different types of ways for kids to do that across the spectrum … not just for men’s and women’s basketball … exploring what fits for them and what they want to do,” Manhertz said.

“All (10 new men’s basketball players) who came in this year didn’t come in with the expectations of ‘Give me this’ or ‘Give me an NIL deal.” It would be against NCAA rules if we were to offer an NIL deal to induce people to come here.”

He explained, “For us to exist in the NIL world, to use baseball terminology, we’re going to hit singles and doubles, we’re not going to hit home runs. The four guys that left (Kyle Lofton, Osun Osunniyi, Dominick Welch and Jaren Holmes; Jalen Adaway had already declared he was going pro) hit home runs and we had an opportunity to give them some NIL money, if they decided to stay. They got offered a lot more money where they went. They gave us four great years, we thanked them, they’re part of us forever, they all graduated and I can’t thank them enough. I don’t begrudge them … opportunity knocks. I think we would all take the opportunity to earn substantially more and do the thing that you love in a place that you think you’d be comfortable.”

To be sure, Welch who left for Alabama, Lofton for Florida and both Holmes and Osunniyi for Iowa State got substantially more NIL compensation than Bona could offer.

STILL, Manhertz admits schools have to be alert to the pitfalls of NIL rules.

“It’s an environment now where everything is permissive,” he said. “I remember the days where you could give a kid a bagel but you couldn’t give him the butter, cream cheese or jelly to put on the bagel. Now you can do a commercial for the bagel, get free bagels and get paid for it, so we’ve come a long way.

“Our biggest thing is education for the kids, donors and boosters … just to make sure the kids aren’t being promised anything to attend school. That’s a no-no. So from our standpoint it’s just making sure people know what the rules are. This is all third-party, we can’t go out and negotiate on behalf of the kids. But the kids who do sign up for NIL deals we ask them to let us know so that they’re doing something that doesn’t break the rules.”

Manhertz added, “We’re going to be pretty lenient in letting the kids use our name and likenesses … they’re Bonnies, so we’re not going to charge them for that. They can use our marks (logos) as long as we feel it’s something that fits our profile and brand we want to be associated with. If it’s something we don’t want to be associated with, we tell them, ‘You may choose to do that, but don’t do it in uniform, do it on your own.”

OF COURSE, for young players entering the new world of athletic compensation, some instruction is in order.

“There’s a plan for financial planners to come in,” Manhertz added. “Say you sign for $10,000 to do an appearance, it doesn’t mean you’re getting $10,000 (string-free), what’s the tax implication of that? We want to make sure kids know that if they get a check for 10 grand, put $3,500 away because you’re going to get taxed on it, so be a little bit more conservative (with spending). What happens if a kid gets a car (as part of an NIL deal) with a car dealer, they’re going to get a 1099 (tax form) for the value of that car.

“We’re putting that in place so that they know what it takes to be successful navigating this. We don’t want to throw them to the wolves and say, ‘Hey, you can make money, good luck.’ It’s unfortunate, the NCAA has become so permissive and the one time we could really help the kids we can’t really engage in that way.”

(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)