School-hopping feared

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/st ... 4330c.html

School-hopping by prep athletes is feared
By Melody Gutierrez -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, March 18, 2006
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee
Two California lawmakers are proposing legislation that high school officials say would create an atmosphere of free agency among student-athletes.

One proposal by state Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, would give athletes a one-time pass to switch schools for any reason - excluding blatant recruiting. Another bill by Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, R-Moorpark, would permit unlimited transfers. Strickland said her office is beginning to work with Ortiz on the legislation.

The state's athletic governing body, the California Interscholastic Federation, asserts the bills would create havoc by allowing athletes to transfer to a playoff-bound team once their school is eliminated.

The CIF has had long-standing rules that require student-athletes to sit out a year if they transfer for competitive or personal reasons. Unrestricted transfers are allowed for proven hardships or when athletes change addresses.

Both bills would put the burden on the CIF and individual schools to prove that a student-athlete who transfers should not be eligible to play sports due to recruiting, said Ortiz and Strickland in separate interviews.

"There are reasons other than shopping for an athletic advantage for transferring schools," Ortiz said, citing a case where a St. Francis tennis player was barred from competing this season after transferring to Christian Brothers.

The player, Ashley Pane, 16, wanted to transfer because she did not like the all-girls atmosphere at St. Francis, not because of sports, say her parents.

"She didn't get to play her junior year of tennis," Donna Pane said. "All the colleges looking at her will ask why she didn't play."

Pane and her husband, Josh Pane, said they asked Ortiz to carry the transfer bill, SB 1411, because of their frustration with what they called inconsistent CIF policies and enforcement.

The Panes are lobbyists in Sacramento, and Josh Pane served on the Sacramento City Council with Ortiz in the early 1990s.

"I think they took a meat ax to some problems with egomaniac coaches in Southern California," Donna Pane said. "It's not in the best interest of the kids."

Ortiz's bill is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on April 5.

No hearing has been set for Strickland's AB 2312.

CIF officials oppose both proposals, asserting that they would create headaches for school administrators and lead to unfair playing conditions.

"When you take a look at the bill (by Ortiz), it allows an athlete to play three-quarters of a season with one team and transfer to play with another team for playoffs," said Pete Saco, commissioner of the Sac-Joaquin Section, which oversees high school sports in the Sacramento region. "What you're doing is laying the case for sports academies. That's really not what we are about."

Saco said his office is inundated with transfer requests and is currently introducing a new transfer ruling of its own. Most of the requests involve students trying to prove hardships, Saco said.

A hardship waiver is an "unforeseeable, unavoidable and uncorrectable act, condition or event" that leads to an athlete transferring, according to the state bylaws.

"You can't believe how many hardship waivers cross my desk," Saco said. "I'm nearing 800, 900 and it's overwhelming. If there is a one-time free pass (as in Ortiz's bill), it would double."

He said he can't imagine the havoc Strickland's bill would cause.

The section's new proposal would do away with hardship waivers. Instead, any athlete who transfers for any reason other than moving would have to wait 30 days into the sports season to become eligible in any sport they played at the previous school.

The rule would apply to an athlete one time.

If the athlete transferred a second time, they would have to sit out one year, regardless of the reason.

"We've had no negative feedback and most of the phone calls have been positive," Saco said. "I think this is in the best interest of our section."

The section will vote on the new transfer ruling April 25.

In the meantime, the CIF is finalizing its strategy to fight both legislative proposals, said CIF Executive Director Marie Ishida.

"Obviously, the concern is about the loss of local control and kids transferring for athletic not academic purposes," said Ishida, who is in Sacramento this weekend for the state high school basketball finals at Arco Arena.

Ishida said she will address the bills at a news conference today at Arco.

CIF officials point to the Los Angeles City Section as an example of why Ortiz's and Strickland's bills wouldn't work. The city section allowed students to transfer once in four years of high school, but overturned the rule in 2003 when the number of transfers skyrocketed.

Strickland said most students who transfer do so for non-athletic reasons, but get caught up in the CIF's rule.

The decision to transfer should ultimately be up to the parents, Strickland said.

"It really seems like a very arbitrary and subjective standard for denying transfers," Strickland said in a telephone interview Friday. "Right now, you have a CIF bureaucrat deciding if a parent's decision to have a child transfer is valid."

Nationally, there is no uniform method of how states deal with athletic transfers, said Joseph Boardwine, associate executive director of the National High School Coaches Association.

"States vary tremendously in this area," Boardwine said. "I know some states have gotten more strict on it."

Many involved with high school sports say they would rather keep restrictions on transfers.

"It would just be a chaotic mess for many districts," said Terry Rasmussen, the San Juan Unified School District's athletic program specialist.

"Why have high school athletics then?" Rasmussen said. "Just let them play club. (Those bills) would be the death of everything."

[bvpv07]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/14232074p-15054330c.html

"Why have high school athletics then?" Rasmussen said. "Just let them play club. (Those bills) would be the death of everything."

oh no, now we are approaching the other article

I don't know...you have to think that first and foremost, you are going to school to get an education. That would be the reasonable motive for transferring schools...has it really come to the point that the majority of the transfers mentioned that are made for reasons other than a change in address are because parents want their kids to be on the "right" team to insure that their darling superstars are going to get a boost into the big leagues?

Please, the few who think like that (and I've known a couple) need to get their priorities straightened out. In my opinion, if you're athletically gifted and are destined to go professional...congratulations and keep up the hard work! However, no one can predict an injury, a sickness, eventual disinterest in a sport...and then what are you going to have to fall back on? An education is something that you'll always have if athletics don't get you where you've planned them to...and that's really why we are all required to go to school, isn't it? Yet because of the few who are transferring schools to get on the playoff team, student-athletes who transfer for academic reasons are getting short-changed on their hs athletic careers...boo.

*PS: I have no intentions of transferring schools nor have I ever transferred schools....just my opinion on the topic.*

[SweetPVJumps]

that idea sounds a little hectic yeah, but i think they need to do something, anything to make transfers for athletes to be an easier option. i tried twice in the past year to transfer to a new school. i go to the mentioned catholic school in the article, st francis, and i also was sick of a lot of things there, ready to throw away my uniform and go to a public school for the first time in my life, and yes co-ed sounded quite an appealing aspect of the new school. my parents supported the transfer, but it just didnt work out. in the end i had to decide to give up on the transfer process and stay at st francis or else there would be a really good chance that i would not be allowed to vault this year. in the end things have worked out and im almost glad i stayed but i think its not fair that people like me that just want to change schools for non athletic reasons. there are a thousand reasons a person might want to change schools, but because of their rules right now it is almost impossible for that to happen for the people who are not willing to give up their sport for their new school. SOMETHING'S gotta change.