Vaka Sues NCAA to Transfer After Scholarship Canceled — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Victory Vaka filed suit against the NCAA in a chancery court in Murfreesboro, Tennessee seeking a temporary restraining order that would let him transfer to Middle Tennessee or another program, attorney Darren Heitner told CBS Sports
- Western Kentucky informed Vaka on May 27 that his scholarship was canceled due to "failure to report" — a designation that prevented him from entering the transfer portal under the NCAA's aid-reduction-or-cancellation exception
- Vaka flew home to California in early April to grieve his mother's death and received a call from a WKU assistant strength coach nine days before her funeral telling him he was expected back in June
- Western Kentucky filed a legislative relief waiver on Vaka's behalf, but the NCAA denied it along with a subsequent appeal, leading to the lawsuit
- Vaka's agent Jaykwon Jefferson said multiple FBS schools would sign the 6-foot-3, 335-pound defensive tackle today if he could enter the portal; WKU had signed him for $2,000 a month
- Per CCHA Law partner Paia LaPalombara, institutions face a "rock and a hard place" because granting Vaka a 30-day portal window would require the school to admit its own Level III violation for impermissibly removing aid
- Vaka acknowledged he could have communicated better, noting the two sides had no contact between his mother's death and WKU's late-May demand that he report
Why it matters: Vaka was set to graduate in the fall with one year of eligibility left, but the NCAA's aid-cancellation exception — designed to shield athletes from losing scholarships for athletic reasons — instead trapped him because WKU classified his absence as disciplinary. The case tests whether a grieving player caught in that loophole can force the NCAA to grant relief the normal waiver process already denied him twice.
Ask SkimNews
