Brian Hoffman, the father of Virginia Tech junior G Brock Hoffman, told the Roanoke Times that his son’s eligibility waiver appeal was denied in part because Brock’s mother returned to work following brain surgery.
The NCAA’s confused process with eligibility waivers has been laid bare in multiple cases throughout the offseason, with Hoffman’s one of the more unbelievable that has surfaced. The 6-foot-3, 316-pounder transferred from Coastal Carolina to Virginia Tech in February to be closer to his mother, who underwent brain surgery in June of 2017 to remove a brain tumor. After Brock’s initial waiver request was denied, player and school appealed, only for the NCAA to come back asking why his mother did not retire from her job as a schoolteacher following the surgery. There’s a pretty good reason for that -- according to Mr. Hoffman, his family is almost $1 million in debt due to medical bills. Hoffman said that he provided the governing body with insurance and financial records which showed that if his wife did not continue to work, the family would be negatively impacted. None of this mattered to the NCAA, which denied the appeal anyway.