Florida High School Transfer Rule: Good for the Student-Athlete, Bad for the School
While there are split feelings on the existing Florida transfer rule, most agree that it’s better than the former policy, where the FSHAA made student-athletes wanting to transfer ineligible to play sports for one season.
When then-Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into law House Bill 7029, allowing student-athletes in Florida to transfer freely under open enrollment effective with the fall 2017 sports calendar, it began a process of what some high school coaches refer to as the wild, wild West. To some, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, while others say it’s a fair description.
“It’s kind of crazy in some parts of the state,” saidLenny Jankowski, Vero Beach head football coach and athletic director. “In some of the larger metro areas, where you have several schools within close proximity to one another, we’ve seen student-athletes play multiple sports at different schools within the same calendar year while living outside those schools’ districts. They’re not alone in that regard, but it’s just easier for kids to do that without a lot of hardship on transportation, etc. I really don’t think any of us (coaches and administrators) are in favor of that. It’s not really what high school sports are about.”
Jankowski did say that in his particular school district at Vero Beach, they are deemed at capacity, meaning the student-athlete must physically move to and live in the district’s geographical boundary.
Another possible advantage is that the existing transfer policy replaced antiquated practices used by school districts in South Florida that attempted to make it tougher for student-athletes to transfer. Because of the success that many South Florida programs enjoyed, especially with their football and basketball teams, the district began to craft strict eligibility criteria in an attempt to reduce the onslaught of outside transfers.
Of course, there is a large faction of fans passionate about high school football who oppose the rule in every way imaginable. For those fans who feel a large degree of loyalty to the game, they see the ruling as being against everything that high school sports stands for. In the eyes of most fans, families move into a community and raise kids in that community, and those kids attend community schools, thus growing up to play for their school’s sports teams.
Many fans feel like it is a mentality of “my town against your town.” Local businesses would shut down early on game days and perhaps even earlier for out-of-town games to allow everyone plenty of time to get to the game. If your team wins, it’s bragging rights against the neighboring town for a year. Lose, and it’s the “we’ll get ‘em next year” mentality.
Speaking of winning and losing, that is another reason that fans of the game don’t like the open transfer policy. The temptation is simply too easy to keep a player from jumping ship to the team one town over.
One caveat of the transfer policy is that schools and coaches will be held accountable if they are found to have actively recruited a player. Punishments include fines and suspensions.
Written by: Phil Jones
