When it comes to the issue of transfers in high school sports, you’re either going to be in one of two camps — old school and new school.
The old-school thinking is that you should remain at the school you started out or go to the high school your middle school feeds into. Exceptions to that rule should be rare.
The new-school thinking says kids should go to whatever school they want to, whenever they want to go to that school, and anyone who thinks otherwise should just get over it.
And like it or not, the number of people with the new-school thinking is growing.
“Parents are more aggressive about selecting where (their kids) are going to school than they used to be,” WIAA executive director Mike Colbrese told the Kitsap Sun of Bremerton. “That’s a given.”
Regardless of what side of the argument you stand on, you should really check out a story Jeff Graham of the Kitsap Sun wrote about this issue.
We at The Columbian are exploring our own story on the transfer issue. But reading about the topic from the perspective of the Kitsap Sun may be a good start for Clark County readers. The issues covered in the Kitsap Sun story are prevalent everywhere, including Clark County.
And if you read a story that involves schools like North Kitsap, Olympic or Central Kitsap, you can read about issues without the passions that would be stirred up if the story were about schools like Camas, Union or Skyview.
But before you read any story about transfers, it’s important to remember these three points.
1. In the grand scheme of things, high school sports don’t matter that much.
That’s a hard thing to write when so much of your job revolves around covering high school sports. But let me explain.
You may find the rules that allow students to change high schools are too lenient. But the reason for that is that the primary goal of administrators is to allow students to succeed in the class and in life. And if changing a school will help achieve that goal, then students will be allowed to change schools. If it also allows a student to succeed on the athletic arena, well then so be it.
2. Every parent has a choice about where their child attends school.
When people decide where they are going to live, they are deciding where their kids will attend school.
Now it’s true that some people have fewer options than others when it comes to choosing a school. But there is still a choice. And if a family decides to move, in almost every instance, the student will be eligible to play sports at the new school. Why? Well, let’s move to point three.
3. One of the primary objectives of the WIAA is to promote participation.
Extracurricular activities, which include sports, are an important part of the educational process. So the WIAA and district administrators want to encourage as many students to take part in extracurricular activities as possible.
Because of that, whenever rules are proposed that would make it harder for students to change schools and still remain eligible, those proposals are quite often sent down to defeat.
It’s also the reason that of all the hardship cases for eligibility presented to the WIAA, about 70 percent of them are approved.
So even with these three points, there was one quote in the Kitsap Sun’s story that I found worrisome. It came from Nate Andrews, the athletic director at Bremerton’s Olympic High School, who said the onus is on each high school to maintain the strongest athletic program that it can.
“If you don’t put a good product out there, if they have the means, (families) will go elsewhere,” Andrews said.
The statement is true. But the part about “if they have the means” is what worries me.
Not every family has the means. So if we don’t do anything to lasso in this growing transfer trend — and there are plenty of good reasons not to — then the chasm between the haves and the have-not will grow to monumental proportions.
And if that’s going to be the case, then we have to be willing to allow schools to freely opt-down in classifications to allow their athletic teams to remain competitive and provide an equal playing field for all.
But that’s a column for another day.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep editor for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
