Trinidad Chambliss’ lawsuit in the Chancery Court of Lafayette County, Mississippi, asks the court to bar the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility denial and to require the association to apply its bylaws as written and as promised.

Chambliss’ case advances a restrained but consequential theory. It does not attack the NCAA’s eligibility system as unlawful. The claim is narrower and more traditional: the NCAA failed to honor its contractual obligation to apply its own rules in good faith.

This framing distinguishes the case from much of the recent eligibility litigation. Where many suits press antitrust theories in federal court, this one relies on Mississippi contract law. It treats NCAA bylaws not as aspirational policies, but as binding commitments that govern how discretion must be exercised.

Chambliss’ Allegations

Chambliss alleges that serious and recurring medical conditions prevented him from meaningful competition during the 2022 season while he was enrolled at Ferris State. Those conditions included infectious mononucleosis, chronic tonsillitis, respiratory impairment, and complications following COVID-19. Ferris State redshirted him during that period.

After surgical treatment in late 2024, his condition resolved. He transferred to Ole Miss and competed in 2025 with the understanding that he remained eligible for a fourth season in 2026. Ole Miss later submitted a waiver request supported by medical documentation. The NCAA denied it.

The complaint rests on the contractual architecture of NCAA athletics. Member institutions agree to follow NCAA bylaws and submit eligibility decisions to NCAA authority. In return, the NCAA undertakes to administer those bylaws according to their terms and stated purposes.

Chambliss alleges that these agreements form enforceable contracts and that student-athletes are intended third-party beneficiaries. Under Mississippi law, every contract carries an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. The NCAA’s discretion, according to Chambliss, is not absolute. It is bounded by reason, consistency, and fidelity to its own rules.

Eligibility determinations, in this view, are acts of contractual performance. They must conform to the standards the NCAA has imposed on itself.

Breach of Good Faith and Fair Dealing. The petition alleges that the NCAA violated that duty in several ways:

• By disregarding opinions from Chambliss’ treating physician and from Ferris State’s medical staff.
• By imposing a rigid “contemporaneous documentation” requirement inconsistent with its own policies.
• By ignoring bylaws that permit retrospective medical evidence.
• By issuing public statements that allegedly mischaracterized both Chambliss’ medical history and Ferris State’s reasons for redshirting him.

Taken together, the complaint alleges that the NCAA acted arbitrarily, not neutrally; selectively, not evenhandedly; and in a manner that defeated the purpose of the hardship waiver process.

The alleged breach is not procedural error alone. It is the deprivation of the contractual benefit promised by the bylaws themselves.

Relief sought. Chambliss seeks a declaration that the NCAA’s decision violated its contractual obligations. He also seeks an injunction preventing the NCAA from barring his participation in the 2026-27 season at Ole Miss.

The remedy is equitable. It seeks compliance, not damages. The lawsuit aims to compel faithful application of the rules, not their abolition.

Applying Theories of Contract to the NCAA Eligibility Rules

Recent eligibility challenges often proceed under antitrust law. This is particularly true in cases challenging the NCAA’s JUCO rule.[1] Those cases challenge the NCAA’s eligibility framework as unlawful restraints on economic trade.

Chambliss’ case takes a different approach. The question is not whether the rules restrain trade. The question is whether the NCAA followed the rules it wrote in good faith. His case departs from other eligibility challenges because it does not challenge the legality of the eligibility framework as a whole. Instead, it accepts the eligibility rules as lawful and argues that the NCAA’s application of those rules in Chambliss’ case breached the duties the NCAA owed to him.

The injunction Chambliss seeks in this case, if granted, is unlikely to directly impact other similarly situated student athletes. However, his pleading strategy could become the blueprint for a new wave of challenges to the NCAA’s eligibility rules.

[1] Our prior blog posts have explained the JUCO Rule and the NCAA’s JUCO Waiver and various challenges filed by student athletes like Jett Elad and Tatuo Martinson.