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2 Districts Limit Athlete Transfers

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By MARILYN BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 7, 2008

TAMPA - Officials in two Florida school districts said they have found a way to limit the free agency of high school athletes who switch schools for more playing time, better coaches or championship teams.

Miami-Dade and Brevard counties have rules that require students who switch schools after entering ninth grade to lose athletic eligibility for a year.

"I'm not going to tell you it stopped them. I'm not going to tell you people don't still lie," said Cheryl Golden, instructional supervisor for the Greater Miami Athletic Conference. "But it sure has slowed them down."

Miami-Dade and Brevard are the only districts in Florida in line with the rest of the nation, said Sonny Hester, senior associate executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association.

"Florida has the most liberal transfer policy anywhere in the country," Hester said. "We're the only one with a program where you can be eligible at a different school every year."

Last month that system was questioned when the son of Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy was awarded a special assignment to attend popular Plant High School in South Tampa. It is over capacity.

District coaches told The Tampa Tribune that shopping for an athletic program is common and increasing. But Hillsborough County officials said they do not know how many athletes in the district are on special assignments to schools outside their assigned boundaries or how many moved into a new boundary to play a sport.

The FHSAA objects to such switching because transfer students can take key playing positions from deserving athletes and disrupt plans of coaches who suddenly lose players they have "put time, blood and sweat" into, Hester said.

In addition, parents of non-athletes who are denied transfers often complain of favoritism by the district toward athletes.

"Somebody has to advocate for the kid sitting on the bench," Hester said. "High school athletics is supposed to be an extension of the classroom; it's not supposed to be ESPN and big business."

Claims that students need transfers to get college scholarships are overrated, he said. "There is way more money in academic scholarships than there ever will be in athletic scholarships."

Balancing Rules For Everyone

Fairness issues also are cited by the two Florida districts that broke from the ranks to impose restrictions.

"In our district, it was important to principals, parents and athletic directors to balance the competition, make sure everyone feels the rules are fair and equitable to everybody," said Doug Rodriguez, principal of Ronald Reagan/Doral Senior High in Miami and a member of the district committee that hears appeals from parents.

"What we're trying to do is balance the rules for everyone," said Rodriguez, who has served on the Athletic Eligibility and Rules Committee for six years. The district has 38 high schools that play sports.

Golden estimates the committee hears about 50 appeals a year and has approved no more than 30 percent since the rule was adopted in 1999.

On the other hand, if a student has been in a school and the family moves to another boundary, the family may apply for a transfer for their child to stay in the original school and retain athletic eligibility.

"We reward parents and students for not falsifying information about their address," she said.

"We also reward students," she said. "Your eligibility stays because you don't lie."

The reason Miami-Dade's school board returned to requiring transferring athletes to sit out a year from playing was the humiliation Miami High School suffered in the late 1990s. The FHSAA stripped it of its state basketball championship, Golden said.

"We had kids living with teachers, we had recruiting, we had it all," she said. "When your state championship is taken back, you're told to fix it. ... It was a community outcry."

There have been legal challenges to the committee's decisions, she said, but "we've been to court, but we've been upheld."

Though there are only two Florida districts with the wait-to-play rule, she said she has heard of others that want such a rule.

"They can't. If you have a school board member who wants to do a favor for someone, they say, 'Go ahead and give them a transfer.'"

Policy Irritates Some Parents

Brevard is in its sixth year with its policy and parents still protest it.

"I get calls every other week about it," said Gary Shiffrin, principal of Merritt Island High, who is commissioner of the Cape Coast Conference and author of the transfer rule. "They say, 'Who came up with this policy; it's stupid.'"

A new superintendent who emphasized ethics helped sell the plan that Shiffrin was working on to the school board, he said.

"I met with him and talked about an issue we had. We had some teams that had literally become all-star teams. Merritt Island High had back-to-back state baseball championships but maybe two or three players actually lived on Merritt Island.

"It was a matter of the rich get rich and the poor get poorer," he said.

"We should allow students the opportunity to participate in wholesome athletic competition against other schools."

Brevard also has a committee that can restore athletic eligibility for transfer students, but it now hears just six or seven appeals a year from the 13 high schools that have sports teams, he said. When the rule was first changed, there were up to 50 appeals a year, he said.

Shiffrin was on the state assembly of FHSAA members who voted two years ago to approve a similar statewide policy that would have required athletes to sit out a year if they transferred, starting in 2006-07. The rule was put on hold by a task force that had been created by state legislators.

Florida's political climate over the past decade, with its emphasis on parental choice through school vouchers, charter schools, home schooling and district choice plans, has encouraged the liberal policy, Hester and others said.

"It's a political bomb," Hester said. "Choice says people have to be able to move their kids around for whatever reason they want. Every public school is in competition with every other public school. That's the education mode we're in."

"I get calls every day: 'Somebody stole my kid,'" Hester said. "I tell them the word is 'choice.' ... It's all about free enterprise, capitalism, survival of the fittest."

In the end, he said, "It's up to adults to care."

Bob Henriquez, a former state legislator from Tampa and longtime football coach for Tampa Catholic High School, was on the state task force that nixed the sit-out rule as it stiffened recruiting penalties and required parents to sign an affidavit.

"It created more problems than it fixed," Henriquez said of the rule that included a list of exceptions. "I hate to punish the kids. The bottom line is people are going to find ways around things."

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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