Transfers 101
September 21, 2011
A recent blog (“Troubling Transfers”) brought us several responses where the writer had student-specific issues, to which we do not respond here. Questions about a particular pupil should first be addressed to the local school’s administration. If the school needs help with the answer or wishes to prepare a request for waiver, MHSAA staff is ready to help.
One writer sought a list of the 15 exceptions to the automatic ineligibility of a transferring student. Here are brief summaries (not the full rule):
Eight Residency Exceptions –
1. Student moves with the people he/she was living with previously (full & complete).
2. Student not living with parents moves back in with them.
3. Ward of the Court, placed with foster parents.
4. Foreign exchange student moves in with host family who resides in district. Two semesters/three trimesters only.
5. Married student moves into school district.
8. Student moves with or to divorced parent.
12. An 18-year-old moves without parents.
13. A student resides in a boarding school.
Five School Status Exceptions –
6. School ceases to operate, not merged.
7. School is reorganized or consolidated.
9. School board orders safety transfer or enrollment shift.
11. Student achieved highest grade available in former school.
15. New school established; student enrolled on first day.
Two Student Status Exceptions –
10. Incoming first-time 9th grader.
14. Expelled student returns under preexisting criteria.
In three cases (exceptions 8, 12 and 13), an Educational Transfer Form must be completed by administrators of both schools and the MHSAA before the student may participate.
In four cases (exceptions 2, 8, 12 and 13), the exception may only be utilized once by a student while enrolled in grades 9 through 12.
There is also a provision where a student may request a waiver at the subvarsity level for a 9th- or 10th-grade student who has never played any MHSAA tournament sport in high school.
I recognize this is all “un-bloglike,” but the topic of transfers brought some basic and general questions that we could answer here.
Once A Coach
April 15, 2014
While I was doing some spring cleanup in the yard of my house a weekend ago, the legendary coach, Phil Booth, walked by with his wife. In response to his shout “Hi Jack!,” I replied “Hello Coach.”
Phil has been many things during his long life; and even now he is an accomplished painter. But as one of our state’s most winning high school baseball and football coaches while at Lansing Catholic Central High School before his retirement two decades ago, he is still “Coach” to me . . . as he is to very many other people.
Once a coach, always a coach.
At my father’s memorial service 15 months ago, several players from the high school and college teams he coached in the 1940s and 1950s paid their respects, still referring to Dad as “Coach.”
Once a coach, always a coach.
At the visitation and Mass for former MHSAA Associate Director Jerry Cvengros on April 7, many people referred to him as “Coach,” even though he had also been an English teacher, athletic director and principal. And in his eulogy for Jerry, the MHSAA’s current associate director, Tom Rashid, used the word “coach” at least 25 times, even though Jerry’s illustrious coaching career at Escanaba High School ended 30 years ago.
Once a coach, always a coach.
There are very many very important ingredients in educational athletics – students, officials, administrators, parents, media, and volunteers of all kinds – but the key ingredient always has been and still is the coach. The impact of the coach can be, and often is, deeper and longer lasting than all other contributing factors combined.