After his sophomore guard scored a team-high 28 points to lead his team to a 2011 win over the Lowndes Vikettes, Mill Creek girls basketball coach Ashley Phillips could only wonder what the future of his program could be in the coming years. While it looked promising, he feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his rising star at his school, saying he knew she would be somewhere else next year, at a school with a more established girls’ basketball tradition.
As it turns out, Phillips’ fear of losing his star player was right. Jasmine Carter eventually transferred to Atlanta-area private school St. Pius X, where she became one of the nation’s top-rated players, leading her new team to back-to-back state championships and earning a full scholarship to the University of Georgia.
Phillips’ experience of losing a star player to a transfer is something that many high school coaches throughout the state experience every year.
“No doubt it’s a huge problem,” said newly appointed Valdosta football coach Alan Rodemaker.
One component of student-athlete transfers is high school coaches seeking to gain competitive advantages wherever they can get them, even if that means luring a talented student-athlete to transfer from a rival school district.
It may seem far-fetched that a high school coach would blatantly break the rules and would take the risk of getting caught recruiting, facing possible fines, suspensions, postseason bans and forfeiture of wins, but Rodemaker said he believes it’s more prevalent than people think.
Rodemaker said he believes more than 50 percent of all high school coaches throughout the state, across all sports, actively recruit players to transfer from other schools. “It’s a huge problem, though. For us, we get transfers but I’ve never been a part of (recruiting).”
Others agreed that there is a major problem in the state when it comes to players flipping schools.
“In my area, in Quitman, it isn’t an issue,” Brooks County football coach Maurice Freeman said. “But I have a lot of coaching friends in the Atlanta area, in Macon, Columbus, and the Augusta area, and that’s all they complain about. The athletes are here one day, and the next day they’re gone and eligible to play at a new school the very next season.”
Currently, the GHSA by-laws state that a student-athlete may transfer from one member institution and be eligible the following athletic year only if he or she moves out of the former school’s zone and into the new school’s zone by the time he or she enrolls at the new school.
For coaches like Colquitt County’s Rush Propst, who has won back-to-back state football championships, those transfers can’t be stopped, and students who make legitimate qualified moves shouldn’t be punished.
“Parents want their kids to be on successful teams, and I don’t think we should punish that,” said Propst, who admitted he does get calls from people interested in making legitimate moves to Colquitt County for athletic reasons. “If their kid wants to make a qualified move, then don’t punish them.”
Rodemaker’s mindset is similar to Propst, stating successful programs tend to recruit themselves with parents interested in making legitimate moves for athletic gain.
“Success does recruit itself. Parents are more apt to pick up and move their whole family for these kids, which, to me, is just insane,” Rodemaker said. “But with the cost of these college scholarships and the way the professionals are being paid these days, parents are willing to take a chance and move their families.”
The GHSA by-laws on transfers and enrollment does not account for private schools and city schools, however, which can accept any student regardless of where he or she may reside, as long as that student is paying tuition.
Many believe that has added to a competitive advantage for those schools, considering any student can attend for a certain cost and be immediately athletically eligible, even if they don’t relocate.
“There is no question that recruiting goes on,” Propst said. “The private schools have been able to do it forever. In the public sector, we have stiffer rules….Kids have options more now than they have ever before. Coaches in the public sector, they don’t have to recruit. Their program stands alone. It recruits itself.”
The results of city and private schools winning state championships are hard to ignore, too. From 2011-15, GHSA-member private schools won an alarming 198 state championships, or 45 percent of state titles, across 11 different sports.
“I am positive they have an unfair advantage,” said Freeman, who called for private and public schools to be completely separated on athletic platforms, especially after his football team has lost in the state playoffs to private schools each of the past three seasons. “Complete separation because we can’t recruit.”
To help alleviate some of the competitive advantage city and private schools are having on the field in regards to transfers, the GHSA implemented a new 3.0 rule for the upcoming 2016-17 athletic season. The 3.0 rule states that a school must move up a classification if over three percent of its student population comes from outside of the county in which the school is located.
That new rule affected multiple schools, many of which are private and city schools. Among those affected was Gwinnett County football power Buford, which has claimed seven of the past nine state championships in its respective classifications.
“I think the 3.0 rule is fair,” Propst said. “For me, that’s pretty liberal. If you have x number of kids outside of your district, then yes you should play ahead in the classification.”
People like Freeman believe the 3.0 rule is a wasted measure by the GHSA, and more has to be done to even the playing the field.
“I think the 3.0 rule was a complete waste of a time,” Freeman said. “All those schools appealed. They got to go back down. All the private schools in Class AA appealed and are back in AA.”
A lack of administration and staff at the GHSA makes it nearly impossible to monitor student-athlete transfers and recruiting. Rodemaker said, “Coaches out there know that there are not enough people with the Georgia High School Association that can police that stuff. There are just not enough people policing out there to stop it.”
When schools do get caught with infractions, the penalties can be stiff, which is why Propst believes the recruiting that goes on is more from private schools, because public schools fear getting caught and facing the penalties handed down.
In February, Dougherty High School’s boys basketball team, a public high school located in Albany, Georgia, was hit with its second major infraction in two seasons for playing what is a considered a migrant athlete, or a student who lives outside of the school’s zone. As a result, the school was handed down four fines, ranging from $300 to $1250, forced to forfeit all wins in which that athlete participated, and was banned from postseason play this season.
Even with some schools getting caught with infractions, many believe their needs to be more monitoring than what is currently going on.
“There is not enough,” Freeman said. “Look at how many schools you have in the GHSA. You don’t have enough people policing it.”
By Ed Hooper
