The NCAA Versus Daisha Simmons

At the on-campus Walsh Gymnasium on February 22, Seton Hall University honored its four senior women's basketball players before its final home game against Villanova University. The Pirates, in the midst of their best season in 20 years, gave the seniors flowers and framed replicas of their jerseys. Coach Tony Bozzella spoke about their accomplishments.

When the public address announcer introduced guard Daisha Simmons, she walked toward midcourt locking arms with her mother, Christena Simmons, on her right and her brother, Chaz Ranson, on her left.

More than a dozen family members joined them on the floor. Some wore blue, long sleeve t-shirts with "#teamDAISHA" and "Time to TURN UP!" on the front and Simmons's name, uniform number (0), and "She Got GAME" on the back.

They had made the 10-mile commute from Jersey City, New Jersey to celebrate Simmons's career, which has included stops at three colleges and an unexpected spot in the national sports conversation.

For a few weeks last fall, Simmons became a reluctant symbol of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's restrictive transfer rules. She had graduated from the University of Alabama, but University officials wouldn't allow her to play this season at Seton Hall. As reports emerged that Simmons chose Seton Hall to be closer to her sick mother and brother, Alabama still didn't budge. ESPN's Jay Bilas, Keith Olbermann, Dick Vitale, and countless others came to her defense, yet nothing changed. Finally, threatened with a lawsuit, Alabama relented in early October.

And so, there Simmons was on February 22, surrounded by family and friends and a supportive crowd of 1,074 fans. She couldn't have scripted a better ending.

With the score tied, Bozzella called a timeout and set up a play for Simmons. When the game resumed, she hung out in the corner in front of the Pirates' bench before heading toward the right wing. She caught a pass, dribbled twice with her left hand, spun around three defenders, and made a right-handed layup off the backboard that gave Seton Hall a 64-62 lead with 4.8 seconds remaining.

Villanova then threw an inbounds pass to Caroline Coyer. Simmons guarded Coyer and locked her down as she dribbled up the court. Coyer missed a shot at the buzzer; the Pirates went on to win their next two games, capture their first Big East regular season title, and strengthened their case for making the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1995.

Currently ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, Seton Hall beat St. John's 72-60in a Big East Tournament semifinal on Monday and will face DePaul in tonight's final, with the winner receiving an automatic NCAA bid.

Minutes after Simmons's late-game heroics against Villanova on February 22, the seniors took turns speaking to the fans. Simmons, who scored a team-high 22 points and played all 40 minutes, went last. Shy and uncomfortable in large group settings, she begrudgingly grabbed the microphone from teammate Chizoba Ekedigwe.

"I just want to say thank you," Simmons said.

The crowd noise grew so loud that Simmons—who in early March earned All-Big East honors and was named the conference's Defensive Player of the Year after averaging 18.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, and a Big East-best 2.8 steals per game during conference play—paused for a few seconds.

"It's been a long journey," she said. "But this is my best year, and I just want to say thank you."

Simmons never set out to reform a broken system. She prefers being by herself or with family members and close friends. She doesn't have a Twitter account. A friend recently set her up with an Instagram account she rarely uses. She doesn't usually share her feelings with anyone.

Still, she wasn't about to be meek while her future lay in the balance. After scoring more than 2,400 career points in high school in New Jersey, Simmons signed with nearby Rutgers in 2010. She lasted one season with the Scarlet Knights before transferring to Alabama, where she sat out the 2011-12 season and then started the next two seasons.

Last May, having already earned her undergraduate degree, Simmons decided to transfer again. Her mother was suffering from diverticulitis, a painful digestive disease, as well as asthma and arthritis. Her brother was undergoing dialysis three times a week and was on a waiting list for a kidney. She also wanted to pursue an MBA in sports management, a program that Seton Hall offered but Alabama didn't.

Because Simmons already had transferred once during her career, she was ineligible for the NCAA's graduate transfer exception, which allows players to bypass a rule that forces transfers to sit out a year of competition and instead be immediately eligible if the graduate program at their new school isn't offered at their previous one.

Instead, she had to file for a waiver, which meant that Alabama not only had to sign off on Simmons leaving, but also her desire to play right away. At first, Alabama wouldn't let Simmons go. The school changed course a few weeks later, yet wouldn't sign a form to make her eligible this season. When Seton Hall sent information to the NCAA, the organization took the unusual step of granting Simmons a sixth year of eligibility. She could play during the 2015-16 season, but she would have to sit out this season unless Alabama granted her a release.

Frustrated with the slow progress and eager to play immediately, Simmons reached out to Don Jackson, an Alabama-based attorney. Jackson, who has been involved in more than 100 NCAA-related cases over the past two decades, had recently received national attention for representing Kansas State basketball player Leticia Romero.

After Kansas State fired its coach last March, Romero chose to transfer, but the school initially wouldn't release her. Thanks to Jackson's work, Kansas State said Romero could play for any school outside of the Big 12 conference. She is now at Florida State.

When Simmons told Jackson about her situation in the early summer, Jackson gave her some advice, yet he declined to represent her. He assured Simmons that everything would work out soon enough.

"I was just really optimistic that the University would do the right thing," Jackson said. "I thought Daisha's case was worse [than Romero's] because the issues in her case—her mother's illness, her brother's illness—they were so clear that I just couldn't have imagined a University taking such an aggressive approach towards trying to prevent her from transferring to a new school and getting immediate eligibility. I thought in that respect her case was actually more clear-cut than Leticia's case."

During the next few months, Seton Hall coach Tony Bozzella worked on the Simmons case a few hours every day, as did others in the Seton Hall athletics department. They compiled a report on why Simmons should be eligible, researched previous cases, and contacted Alabama officials several times. Bozzella said he spoke with an Alabama assistant coach, who told him the issue was more with the Crimson Tide's administrators and not the coaching staff. Bozzella was puzzled.

"I think it's about the student-athlete," he said. "I think sometimes the NCAA forgets that. Sometimes coaches and athletic directors forget about that, too. This should have never gone farther. The coach should have been like, 'Listen, you want to leave, leave. We don't have your masters program. Thanks for everything. I didn't recruit you. You were here when I got here. Thanks for being who you are.' That's it—hug, kiss, goodbye

On September 30, a reporter with the Gannett New Jersey newspapers published an article detailing Simmons's plight. An Alabama spokesman issued a statement to Gannett indicating the school "considers this matter closed." Despite the outrage of Bilas, Vitale, Olbermann, and others over the next few days, Alabama president Judy Bonner stood by the athletics department's refusal to grant Simmons immediate eligibility.

By then, Jackson had agreed to represent Simmons. He contacted Bonner and gave her an ultimatum. If she didn't get back to him by a certain deadline, he said he would initiate a Title IX complaint against Alabama through the U.S. Department of Education office in Atlanta and possibly file a federal lawsuit over Title IX violations. Jackson alleged Alabama coach Kristy Curry had violated Title IX by engaging in "harassment, bullying, conduct that rose to the level of physical mistreatment of student-athletes."

"It was the treatment of women student-athletes in the basketball program, not solely related to the transfer issue," Jackson said. "The transfer issue was only one element of that. It was the overall treatment of student-athletes."

Alabama's athletic department did not respond to a VICE Sports request to discuss Jackson's allegations of Title IX violations. Jackson did not file suit nor pursue the matter further.

On October 7, Alabama reversed its position when athletics director Bill Battle announced the University supported Simmons's request for immediate eligibility. Two days later, the NCAA declared Simmons could play this season.

"The support that came with it was great," Simmons said. "But, yeah, the hardest part was having my family's business put out there. Not just because how serious the issue was, just because that's how I am as a person, really. I'm really introverted. I keep to myself. At times, I would open up, but for situations like that, it's something that I really wanted to share. To have it shared to the world like that, it's kind of crazy."

The day before her final Seton Hall home game, Simmons called her brother to make sure he could watch her final home game the next afternoon. Chaz Ranson, 34, had been exhausted recently, a side effect of the treatments he had been receiving for end stage renal disease. Still, he wanted to be there for his sister, who takes him to his dialysis appointments and picks up food and other items for him when he's not feeling well.

"That's my little superstar," Ranson said. "I can remember since she was probably like three or four with a basketball in her hand. I knew she was going to go on to do great things. I'm very proud of her. Very proud of her."

After Sunday's game, Ranson and other friends and family members hung around Walsh Gymnasium chatting and reminiscing about Simmons's passion for basketball. Christena Simmons recalled when her daughter started playing against her male classmates in elementary school.

"The little boys used to come get me and say, 'Miss Chrissy, can you make Daisha get off the basketball court?,'" she said. "I used to go take her by her ponytail and pull her off the court. Daisha would go right back and she would stay there. After a while, I got tired of going to take her off the court. I was like, 'It's a free court. She can play, too.'"

Christena Simmons said she enjoys having her daughter close to home. Daisha lives with teammate and longtime friend Ka-Deidre Simmons in an apartment, and she sees her mother often. She calls Christena her best friend. Christena works at the post office from Monday through Saturday and also at Target three nights a week. She doesn't drive, so Daisha helps get her to and from her jobs.

"Daisha's a special young lady," Christena said. "She's always been there for us. She wanted to come back home because Chaz and I are sick. She's just been my rock, my strength."

Simmons, who turned 24 in January, hopes to play in the WNBA or overseas and open a basketball gym in her hometown of Jersey City. So far, things have worked out for her, and she doesn't want to be a high-profile martyr in the ongoing fight over how much power the NCAA and its member schools should wield over college athletes.

On the other hand, she doesn't want other players to deal with what she had to endure.

"Right now, I guess because the season's going on, the conversation's died down a lot," Simmons said. "But hopefully the NCAA will take this situation and take the situation with the girl from Kansas State and just say that it's not right for them to have so much control. For the coaching staffs and the NCAA to have so much control over our lives, it's just not right. Hopefully they change it."