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No Easy Fix

February 13, 2015

“If we don’t fix this problem, even our friends and allies may turn against us.”

That was the dire warning one of the MHSAA staff members gave to the rest of us at a weekly staff meeting recently, during which this staff member was receiving emails from people appalled over the mid-season transfer of a basketball player from one school to another.

The “fix” that some people want is a rule that makes every transfer student ineligible for a full year, regardless of the reason for the change of schools or the circumstances of the student. Of course, that rule would never survive judicial scrutiny, and legislators in every corner of the state would be advocating change for the sake of one child or another.

A more moderate remedy is to utilize a rule that applies the full-year period of ineligibility to those students whose circumstances do not fit one of the already established 15 exceptions that make a student eligible without delay following a transfer. That half-measure would not stop many transfers that would still frustrate people, and it would snag many transfers that would continue to anger people.

The rules we already have in place are tools for schools to use to stop many of the transfers that frustrate without snaring those transfers that anger: the athletic-motivated transfer rule and especially the athletic-related transfer rule (or links law).

Before our friends and allies turn their backs on us, they need to turn in the transfer situations where the rules already apply, and the undue influence (recruiting) they can document. They need to give the system a chance to work to the full extent of its potential. We should not make tougher rules if schools fail to utilize the rules they already have.

Adopting rules is usually easy for the organization. Applying rules is often much harder for the schools.

Seal of Approval

February 12, 2016

“Sanction” is an interesting word. Sometimes it is used in a negative way, as in penalties, like the U.S. trade embargoes recently lifted on Iran and Cuba. Other times, to sanction something is to endorse it or at least approve its existence.

It is in this second, more positive sense that school sports uses the word “sanction” with respect to athletic events. And with respect to interstate meets and contests, the MHSAA adheres to the Sanctioning Bylaws of the national organization to which it belongs, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

Without getting into the policies and procedures, here is what the NFHS says about the philosophy of sanctioning interstate athletic events:

Interscholastic programs should serve educational goals. To this end, schools have an obligation to conduct certain threshold inquiries about events in which their students may participate. On occasion, additional inquiries and oversight may be appropriate at the conference, district, state or national levels. In order to perform their “inquiry and oversight” functions fairly and efficiently, decision-makers at various levels have developed sanctioning procedures. The specific purposes served by event-sanctioning procedures include the following:

1) Sanctioning enhances the likelihood that events will adhere to sound and detailed criteria which meet the specific requirements of a school or a group of schools based upon experience and tradition.

2) Sanctioning serves to promote sound regulation of the conditions under which students and teams may compete.

3) Sanctioning is a means of encouraging well-managed competition.

4) Sanctioning adds an element of “due diligence” that encourages compliance with state association rules and regulations.

5) Sanctioning protects the welfare of student-athletes.

6) Sanctioning protects the existing programs sponsored by member schools and thereby promotes the opportunity for larger numbers of student-athletes to gain the benefits of interscholastic competition.

7) Sanctioning helps reduce the abuses of excessive competition.

8) Sanctioning promotes uniformity in obtaining approval for events.

9) Sanctioning helps protect students from exploitation.

Interstate event sanctioning at the NFHS level promotes financial transparency and equivalency of treatment of participating high schools. NFHS sanctioning forms are available on the NFHS website (www.nfhs.org).