College football player loses scholarship after stepping away from team for moms death

Victory Vaka had the rug ripped out from under him.Two months after the Western Kentucky senior defensive lineman’s mom died suddenly, the university is pulling his scholarship.Vaka, a transfer from Texas Southern, lost his mom on April 2 and flew home to grieve his loss.

He planned to return to Western Kentucky and play the 2026 season.His assistant strength coach also passed along a workout program and called him nine days before his mother’s funeral to lay out the expectation that Vaka would be back in June.Yet, when Vaka was not back on May 26, university chief of staff Travis Taylor told the lineman the next day that the Hilltoppers were canceling his scholarship.“I was shocked,” Vaka told CBS Sports. Not only that, the university processed Vaka as a “failure to report,” which does not allow him to enter the transfer portal through the NCAA’s aid reduction or cancellation exemption.

The NCAA also denied Vaka’s legislative relief waiver.It leaves Vaka with a semester left to graduate and no way to transfer to use his final year of eligibility.“It’s like inhumane what they did,” said Vaka.

“When some of these coaches say they care, they really don’t.”Vaka, 6-foot-3, 335 pounds, went on to explain that head coach Tyson Helton didn’t provide a specific return timeline for him and added that he would support Vaka’s decision if he wished to go elsewhere, especially closer to home in Hollywood, Calif.Looking back, Vaka has the feeling the Hilltoppers were looking to replace him all along.“I didn’t want to leave Western Kentucky, but I had to be back at home,” Vaka said.“[Helton] asked me, ‘If you don’t come back out here, I’m not going to blame you.’ That kind of caught me off guard.“I got that feeling they wouldn’t be mad if I didn’t come back.”“In my mind, they were giving me the whole month of May off,” Vaka added, citing the assistant strength coach saying he expected him in June.

“I think that’s...