There's a fascinating discussion over at Kentucky blog A Sea of Blue on the ethical considerations involved in releasing recruits from NLOI's after a coaching change. This seems to come up every year, as the bidding wars for coaches and recruits increases with every passing page of the calendar. The author's conclusion is that asking to be released is an unethical move on the part of the player.

I disagree. Yes, the letter is a binding contract between the school and the player - not the coach - which serves both to protect the school from underhanded moves by rival institutions and the capricious whims of a high school athlete to allow the university and coach to prepare a well-rounded incoming class and to protect the player from the uncertainty an injury might bring. The university, in my opinion gets the better end of this bargain, as you would expect with a rule applied to a labor market to restrict ease of movement.

Here's the thing though. Every player that signs on to a school that then loses its coach to another university was recruited under false pretenses. Not intentionally so, but they chose that institution in no small part because of the man they will be spending four to five hours a day with at a minimum. And that man is no longer there. If a student enrolls in graduate school to work under a specific professor, and said professor then decamps to another institution, no sensible person would demand the student stay at the initial university - or for that matter wait a year before starting work at a second school, but that's another matter. The ethics of college athletics should always be influenced by what's in the best interests of the student athlete, and in this case he should ethically be allowed to ask to be released.

Now I don't think the newly departed coach can ethically ask his recruits to follow him, aand in fact would not be opposed to a regulation forbidding a newly relesead player from signing with the same coach. By trying sign the same player to a second institution, the coach would essentially be saying his first recruiting pitch was a lie, and the primary school not a suitable enviroment for the player. Allowing such a recruiytment would also open up the possibility of a school hiring a coach in part to obtain a player they had previously missed (See Huggins, Bob). And while such a hiring would almost certainly be a mistake (Again, see Huggins, Bob) the temptation should be avoided. But the student should still have the power to look elsewhere, should another university want him.