Transfer Rule In California Up For Heated Debate

There is growing discontent in Southern California over the issue of transfers in high school sports, and the debate is about to heat up.

During a phone call last week, Marie Ishida, executive director of the California Interscholastic Federation, was asked whether any changes needed to be made to a state rule that makes a student who transfers for athletically motivated reasons ineligible for one year.

Ishida said, “It is what it is right now until there’s an effort to change it, and so far, there isn’t. … I think it’s working.”

It might be working in Northern California, where the sections are much smaller and the movement of students is less frequent, but the rule has produced vigorous complaints in Southern California that it is “unenforceable” and “poorly drafted.”

Next month, members of the Trinity League are expected to introduce a proposal at a meeting of the Southern Section Council to eliminate the rule, which is the first step toward eliminating it statewide.

Parents, coaches and administrators cannot figure out why one transfer is eligible under the rule and another isn’t. It is an arbitrary decision made by the section commissioner and later left to a state CIF appeals panel to uphold or reject..

“It will force the state to come up with a rational solution to this situation of students transferring from one school to another,” said Jerome Jackson, an attorney who represents the Diocese of Orange and Santa Ana Mater Dei in a lawsuit against the Southern Section that’s pushing for elimination of the rule.

Whether the athletically motivated transfer rule that went into effect in 2009 is eliminated, the more troubling issue revolves around schools and coaches openly seeking transfers to boost their athletic programs.

Public school districts have advertised in newspapers trying to get students to join their district, because each student is worth thousands of dollars in state funding. Of course, they’re promoting academics, not athletics, but then how come new students are joining the football and basketball programs?

The new model to turn around a program at a private school is to fire the coach, then let the new coach bring in transfer students and, suddenly, the rebuilding process is completed in a year instead of three or four years.

One coach from the Inland Empire said in an email: “It’s a sad day when coaches aren’t talking about working with their neighborhood kids or taking what you have and doing the best you can. Instead, as I heard just yesterday, ’We need transfers.’ What the transfer circus is creating is a bunch of ’haves’ and ’have nots.’ By that I mean a program that attracts transfers is a ’have’ and a school that does not is a ’have not.’ Not a very even playing field.”

There have been so many transfer rules through the years that it’s like trying to figure out a tax code. And the rules keep changing because they’re not working.

I predict that a revolt is coming among Southern Section schools, and everyone had better be careful because once the transfer debate begins, it could re-ignite the bitter divisions over whether there should be separate playoff brackets for public and private schools.

Perhaps one of the two extremes needs to be tried. Get rid of attendance boundaries for all schools and allow any transfers to play. Or make any athlete who transfers ineligible for one year, regardless of whether they move, with no hardship waivers allowed.

So it’s a good development that the Trinity League will be introducing a proposal. It will launch a transfer debate and in the question-and-answer session among the schools, perhaps someone will ask one of the sponsors, “Could you please explain the positives for high school sports in taking in all your basketball transfers through the years?”