MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — While the issue has gained an understandable uptick in attention in recent months, high school student-athletes changing schools in West Virginia is far from a new occurrence. The differences in the wake of recently-passed state legislation could simplify the process but complicate the greater issues.
In a similar rule passed by the NCAA, one of the governing bodies of college sports, student-athletes in West Virginia now have the ability the transfer to another school and be eligible to compete the next year. Previously, student-athletes needed to provide proof of a residence change into the district of their new school. Otherwise, student-athletes could practice with but not compete for their new school for a period of 365 days.
The West Virginia Board of Education agenda for their regularly scheduled meeting on July 12 includes the following new text to clarify the transfer rule:
7.2.a. In addition to those transfers permitted by any other rule, a student shall be eligible for a one-time transfer during the grades 9-12 and shall retain their immediate eligibility following the transfer. If the transfer occurs during a season in which the student has started practice at the previous school, the student will be eligible for all sports except the sport in which the student has started practice at the previous school. Any transfer made outside the scope of this rule shall have the ability to file for a waiver with the WVSSAC Board of Directors as permitted by this rule.
As a result, the frequency of transfers during the summer offseason has increased in pockets throughout West Virginia. Larger schools along the Charleston-Huntington corridor on I-64 and schools in the eastern panhandle appear to have seen the most movement of student-athletes. It is likely that all corners of the state will see increases in transfers but the metropolitan areas appear to be leading the way.
“I do think we are going to see movement. But we are always going to see movement. There’s a lot of schools it is probably not going to affect at all. There’s some schools, especially if you are in an area where there are a lot of schools close together, I think you will see more movement here. In North Central West Virginia, I think you will see some movement because we are so close together,” said Lincoln football and girls basketball head coach Rob Hawkins.
“Obviously in the Charleston area and in the eastern panhandle, I think you will see some movement because schools are so close together.”
“I think transfers have always taken place but now you are going to see it on steroids a little bit,” said Williamstown head football coach Chris Beck. “I think you are seeing it in some parts of the state. To date in Wood County, we really haven’t seen a huge impact yet but I am sure there will be.”
“I think a lot of those counties that have multiple schools in the county, it is just going to be real easy for shifting around,” said Doddridge County football and boys track head coach Bobby Burnside. “I don’t know that the smaller, local schools will see tons of it. I think there will be some. I think it will impact more of the counties that have several schools in them — Wood County, Kanawha County, Harrison. But I don’t really know how it is going to play out.”
North Marion athletic director Daran Hays has led the Husky football program since 2009. He also played for the Huskies two decades ago. Hays believes smaller schools could be adversely affected because they are less likely to be able to weather the loss of a marquee athlete than larger programs are.
“I don’t think they understand that ball of wax that they just started. I don’t know that it will affect us that much. I could see us losing a kid here or there. But we have lost a kid here or there throughout the course of things,” Hays said.
“What I fear is that the Clay-Battelle’s and Hundred’s start losing kids to us or to Fairmont or to Morgantown. And before you know it, what you have is a very depleted Class A field. And then you have four-to-five in each other class that are powerhouses annually. Then it is the flavor of the week to where — Do you want to play for a team that won four last year or won twelve last year?”
John Kelley is entering his 37th season as head football coach at University High School. He is the second-most tenured football coach in the state, trailing only Bluefield’s Fred Simon. Kelley questions the impact a state legislature should have in determining rules for scholastic athletics.
“I’m sure it is going to legalize what some people have done behind the scenes illegally. I don’t like it at all. I don’t like the trend that athletics is going in. I don’t know who comes up with these ideas. For instance, I don’t know why we went to four classes. That was the basketball people with no sense of whatever. I don’t know why we came up with this transfer thing because one guy in Brooke County thought his high school career was affected by it,” Kelley said.
Brooke County Senator Ryan Weld has been an advocate of the bill that passed the state legislature in March.
“I think people pass legislation and make rule changes without realizing the consequences they will have on schools and communities and even academics,” Kelley said.
“If a really good player wants to transfer in here, am I going to say no? I’ll take it. But I just don’t think it should happen. It probably wasn’t thought through. And I don’t think they really consulted the SSAC that well when they did it. The bottom line is that I don’t think the legislature has any business making decisions about high school sports.”
“I have always felt like you stay where you grew up,” Hawkins said. “But some kids are going to try to find a situation that is better for them. I feel like that is why the legislature made the decision.”
Any student-athlete may begin their high school career at a school of their choosing, regardless of whether or not that school is in their residential district. Even though student-athletes have added freedom of movement, recruiting is specifically prohibited. The prohibited actions are detailed in the text for Wednesday’s State BOE meeting agenda:
9.1. The use of influence by a person or group, connected or not connected with the school, to secure or retain a student for athletic participation is not permitted and may cause the student to be ineligible and may cause certain sanctions to be placed against the member school.
9.2. An employee of the school system shall not initiate any communication regarding athletic participation or enrollment with a student, parent of a student, guardian, or family member, in person or through a third party, prior to enrollment. This does not include the introduction of athletic programs to students at feeder schools.
9.3. A student, parent of a student, or guardian shall not be offered for the purpose of encouraging enrollment in a school or participation in an athletic program any inducement, such as free tuition, jobs, supplies, uniforms, other than that which is provided for all students.
“The transfer rule doesn’t mean recruiting is allowed, said new WVSSAC Executive Director David Price. “We’re in the process of fielding a lot of questions about that.”
“I just hope it doesn’t turn into a recruiting war,” Hawkins said. “If it is kids deciding that I am going to go here or I am going to go there, that’s fine. But when you have people going out and recruiting kids from other schools, that’s what I hope it doesn’t turn into.”
As a result of the new transfer rule, the SSAC and its member schools will spend less time and personnel hours in paperwork to assess the legitimacy of transfer requests.
“I think it makes it simpler on everybody,” Hawkins said. “You don’t have to wait court cases and you don’t have to wait for injunctions or anything else. I do think it simplifies that as far as the administration of that goes. As coaches, we’ll just adjust.”
Now that the student-athlete transfer rules mimic those recently enacted by the NCAA, Hays fears that particularly in football, dominant programs will find themselves in an even stronger position against up-and-coming or developing programs.
“The thing I think that is similar to college that I fear is right now, you and I both know that the College Football Playoff has a very large potential to be Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, we can name six-to-eight teams and there’s a good chance four of them are going to come from that,” Hays said. “I am afraid that is what is going to become of high school. That’s not the game I fell in love with. The people making the decisions in our state obviously weren’t much of athletes or didn’t understand that.”
Like in the NCAA, where student-athletes and schools merge in the transfer portal with players seeking added playing time or a better situation, high school athletes can base decisions of where to go to school solely one where they can get greater roles on the courts or fields.
“As long as we put our student-athletes first, I can get on board with whatever that is. But we also have to get them ready for life. Sometimes in life, things don’t always go as planned. Maybe you face some adversity. Are we giving folks easy outs on those? Or are we teaching them to work through those?” Beck said.
“It is an interesting time in West Virginia high school athletics with everything we are trying to do legislatively and with the SSAC and with the Board of Control and with what they are trying to do. It is a lot of change management that everybody is trying to digest. Hopefully when we are trying to make all these changes, at the forefront of all of them are the student-athletes and getting them ready for life beyond high school.”