Last week, University of Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett appeared to be going about business as usual. He participated in ACC media days and spoke about preparing for another season at the helm of the Cavaliers program. But then he took a short vacation with his wife, Laurel, during the university’s fall break this week—and made the decision to immediately retire, he says. Unregulated NIL (name, image, and likeness) payments, the transfer portal, and other issues in college sports had made his job untenable.

It’s an environment caused by the NCAA itself, which refuses to engage in any sort of reform until a court decision forces its hand. The solution to Bennett’s grievances, which he himself referenced, is to engage in collective bargaining. But the NCAA refuses to do so, because that would require athletes to be classified as employees.

On Thursday afternoon, the Virginia athletic department made the abrupt and shocking announcement of Bennett’s retirement. The following morning, Bennett held a press conference, explaining through tears that the current landscape of college sports has driven him out of coaching.

“I am no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment,” he said. “The game, and college athletics, is not in a healthy spot.” Bennett said he believes “there’s still a way in this environment. … But it’s complicated. To admit, honestly, that I’m not equipped to do this is humbling.”

Bennett isn’t the only one who is fed up. He’s the latest big-name coach of several to retire since the beginning of the NIL era: Villanova’s Jay Wright and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski exited the game after the summer of 2021; Alabama football coach Nick Saban announced his retirement earlier this year; UNC’s Roy Williams did so right before NIL began. But Bennett, at 55, is the youngest of the group—as well as the most candid about the college sports landscape being the reason he cut his career short.

But Bennett continued, “There’s gotta be collective bargaining. There has to be a restriction on the salary pool that teams can spend. There has to be transfer regulation restrictions. There has to be some limits on the agent involvement to these young guys. And there are good agents and there are bad agents and they’re driving some of this stuff that we’re in.”