What's up with transfer in-eligibility?

[warmachine7954]

UTM has a hard time recruiting. I would like to see them keep some local talent if they are good enough. I know they are getting Cupples from Dyer Co. but they wouldn't recruit Kayla Hudson from Gleason last yrs. Ms. BB in A. They said she wasn't good enough, she starts @ PG, as a freshman, for the #1 Union Lady Bulldogs. I know NAIA is not D1 but UTM could have used her.

[BBaller91]

According to this which I copied from TSSAA handbook even if you played jv you still have to sit out a full calendar year because you have what they define a "athletic record"

 

Am I reading this wrong?

 

 

 

If the ineligible student has an athletic record for the previous or current school year in football, basketball, baseball, girls softball, or track and field, the student is ineligible in all of these sports. In all other sports, ineligibility applies only to the particular sport in which the ineligible student has an athletic record for the previous or current school year.

 

Athletic Record ??“ A student has an ???athletic record??? if the student has played in an interscholastic contest at the varsity, junior varsity, ninth grade, or any other level, on behalf a TSSAA member school or a school that is a member of a state athletic association holding membership in the National Federation.

 

Section 12. Eligible Transfer Students.

Except as otherwise provided in Section 13 below, the following transfer students are eligible:

 

a. The student has no athletic record in the previous twelve months in any sport sponsored by TSSAA;

[lilc3]

According to this which I copied from TSSAA handbook even if you played jv you still have to sit out a full calendar year because you have what they define a "athletic record"

 

Am I reading this wrong?

If the ineligible student has an athletic record for the previous or current school year in football, basketball, baseball, girls softball, or track and field, the student is ineligible in all of these sports. In all other sports, ineligibility applies only to the particular sport in which the ineligible student has an athletic record for the previous or current school year.

 

Athletic Record ??“ A student has an ???athletic record??? if the student has played in an interscholastic contest at the varsity, junior varsity, ninth grade, or any other level, on behalf a TSSAA member school or a school that is a member of a state athletic association holding membership in the National Federation.

 

Section 12. Eligible Transfer Students.

Except as otherwise provided in Section 13 below, the following transfer students are eligible:

 

a. The student has no athletic record in the previous twelve months in any sport sponsored by TSSAA;

 

 

As far as i know you can't be ineligible if you played jv before at a different school.

I could be wrong, but i've never heard of a school that had an ineligible jv player. Is this handbook you have up to date?

[Dragonmaster]

Any transfer can play jv ball. I personally think that is a bad rule and if you transfer schools without a change of address you should be ineligible except with extreme circumstances.

[dogtrack]

Sorry you guys, i guess i came across wrong. I'm not saying that im willing to put in the time academicly. I definatly am willing to do what it takes to make the grades i know are my very best. What i meant was that my grades aren't gunna get me into college anywhere(i don't think). I have an average GPA.

 

 

If a person really wants to get a college education, they can get it. It's just a matter of what you are willing to do. One way is join the Military for a while and use your veterans status. Don't know any details.

 

I paided for my education as a "co-op". Most decent size schools have a co-operative education program. You basically work a semester and go to school a semester. The co-operation is between a school and the business community. Businesses use the program to identify kids that actually want to work and will generally hire them once they have graduated. I think I had to maintain a C average to stay in the program.

 

It's sounds as if you are a student. If you are, the primary thing you can do is don't give up on yourself. I once had an 8th grade teacher tell me that I would never amount to anything. I was only an average student growing up myself, but I have been quite successful doing what my employers have asked of me. Hard work pays off in sports and in the work place.

 

As you get older, you may realize that some straight "A" student's could not figure out how to beat their way out of a wet paper bag. They are book smart, but have no common sense. Life isn't perfect.

[ruthlessdcfan08]

Any transfer can play jv ball. I personally think that is a bad rule and if you transfer schools with a change of address you should be ineligible except with extreme circumstances.

 

Id be screwed if that were the case, im glad the rule doesnt affect change of address students, it wouldnt be fair

[dogtrack]

I personally know a middle school coach that recruits for his team during the summer through AAU ball and then ultimately sends those players to the high school in which he is associated.

 

 

I'm not sure this would be a fair accusation of the middle school coach, unless you have personally witnessed the recruiting. If it is a boys Memphis middle school team, I would have to guess your are talking about a school in the South. I don't have a son that plays basketball, but, I have watched a boys team win the Shelby County championship game 5 times strait. They were always some of the most disciplined guys on and off the court that I have ever seen. Some parents, particularly of the boys, place alot of emphasis on sports. They work to get there kids playing where there are other good players and their kid can aquire a desired (g/f) starting postion. This can be perceived as recuiting and it is really the parents pushing for one reason or another.

 

AAU also isn't necessarily a recruiting ground. My daughter's High School coach has said that she thinks a school that we have played recruits. But, I know for a fact that the couple of the AAU players are at the same school because of the school's education program. It's was a bonus that they were great friends as a result of the relationships that they developed playing AAU ball.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that there are some coaches that will approach playersparents out of the blue. But, I think it is a minority of the coaches.

 

The recruiting rule (professional draft) in my mind is about leveling the playing field between teams. It takes the sport out of sports, if the same team wins all the time. If you disagree, you might like taking up hunting at the Zoo.

[dore83]

According to this which I copied from TSSAA handbook even if you played jv you still have to sit out a full calendar year because you have what they define a "athletic record"

 

 

You are reading it correctly. There is a TON of incorrect and inaccurate information being doled out in this thread. An athletic record includes JV, and freshman, not just varsity level competition, and it is not limited to a particular sport. For example, if a girl plays JV softball her freshman year at one school and transfers without a "bona fide" change of residence into another public school zone (or outside a 20 mile perimeter of a private school), she is ineligible for participation in varsity volleyball, basketball, softball, and track for a period of one calendar year from her last participation at the first school. She can play JV at the new school, but she cannot play varsity.

 

Personally, I have very little use for the TSSAA. My opinion, along with a lot of other people, is that the TSSAA is out of control. The seem to be more interested in control and their authority and their status and financial bottom line than they do for the good of the individual athletes and in many cases the individual schools. They also have very little consistency in their hardship decisions.

 

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about the transfer process, here are some details. If the parents of a public school athlete move completely out of a school zone boundaries, the athlete can transfer to a new school and s/he is immediately eligible. TSSAA calls that a bona fide move. The new residence is supposed to be a permanent residence where the family actually lives. If the student is at a private school, for the move to be bona fide and be eligible has to be 20 or more miles away from the private school campus. A student with divorced parents can legally move from one parent to another without losing eligibility one time during their high school career. A second move, according to TSSAA rules does not constitute a bona fide move. If you have a bona fide move, you can transfer with immediate eligibility if you transfer at that time, at the beginning of a new semester/term or at the beginning of the following school year. Not transferring by the beginning of the next school year basically erases the bona fide move.

 

If there is no bona fide move, the school into which the student transfers can file for a hardship waiver. Ronnie Carter evaluates the application and makes a decision to grant or deny the hardship. If he denies a hardship, the school can appeal to the TSSAA Board of Control which meets once every few months. The school or whoever the school elects to speak is allowed to make a 15 minute presentation to argue their case for a harship. The BOC along with Carter and other TSSAA executives are at the table during the presentation. After the 15 minutes have expired, the school, parents, and student leave the room. At some point, the BOC makes a decision and notifies the school.

 

There is a significant problem with the hardship process because of inconsistency. Over the last two years for example, one girl transfered from a private school to a public school at the beginning of her junior year and was granted a hardship. Her argument? She wasn't a very good student and couldn't make the grades to be eligible and eventually get into college. Another student was expelled from school for breaking and entering with theft of $50k + from his school. He enrolled in another school out of county, and was declared eligible by the TSSAA. A girl transferred from a private school to a public school in another county after a move to that county. Carter originally turned down the transfer saying it wasn't a bona fide move because the family moved to an apartment complex that was only 17.4 miles from the original private school and therefore short of the 20 mile minimum. They applied for a hardship waiver for financial reasons and was granted eligibility.

 

On the other side of the coin, there was a kid who played for his father at a private school. At the end of the 2006-07 school year, the father was fired from his job at the private school. He transferred to the public school where he was zoned. The kid did not want to continue at a school that fired his father and the family did not want to pay tuition to a school that fired him. They also had a 50% tuition discount for faculty members and could not afford tuition at full rate. Carter denied his hardship request.

 

The family of a female athlete at a private school in Nashville moved to Murfreesboro during her 7th grade year. As an 8th grader, she was moved up to the high school varsity to play softball. She played volleyball, basketball, and softball as a 9th grader. She commuted about 3 hours a day back and forth to school. It wasn't too bad with middle school schedules, but it was overwhelming with the demands and hours of 3 sports and academics as a high schooler. The athlete was completely worn out - mentally and physically. She couldn't take it any more, and all of her coaches and teachers were surprised that she had made it as long as she had. They provided supporting statements to TSSAA. Also, the father had 2 jobs up until right before the start of school her 10th grade year, and the second had run it's course and ended. Tuition was difficult with 2 jobs, and was no longer possible with one. She transferred to the school in Murfreesboro where she was zoned, some 45 miles from the original private school. Carter ruled that it wasn't a bona fide move because the time to transfer had expired. He then denied the hardship because he said the parents should have known that it would have been an inconvenience and transferred her before playing any high school sports. The BOC denied the appeal. The student then said "I guess I should have failed some classes or gotten arrested and then I would be eligible." It appears that there is a significant amount of truth in her observation.

 

There are a ton of other incorrect contentions in this thread. Sitting out a year CAN and does often set a player back. I can provide literally dozens of examples over the years. Perhaps not for a marginal athlete or late bloomer who would be sitting on the bench in varsity ball if not ineligible. But for a college prospect, it can be extremely damaging. Many schools do not have JV basketball teams. Riverdale, Mt Juliet, among tons of others have a freshman team and a varsity, but no JV. A sophomore or junior sitting out has no games to play the entire year. Of course, a school can choose to play a sophomore on their freshman team, but if she is varsity caliber, that does little good to improve her game, and there are only a handful of games in the first place. That level of athlete playing JV isn't a much better option. At our school, 3 of 8 (total) scheduled JV games were cancelled, so that varsity caliber potential college prospect gets 5 whole games if she is ineligible for varsity. Softball is even worse. At many school, there is no JV. In many that do have JV teams, the JV "games" are 2-3 innings after the varsity game. Starters might get one at bat. There is a reason that better players elect to play AAU basketball and travel softball, and a reason why many of the better teams choose to play up in older age groups. There are three ways to truly improve your game to become a true college prospect - hard work, good coaching/training, and high levels of competition. It could be argued that playing on a team with players at or above a players ability is also a 4th key factor. Being relegated to JV with varsity level skills doesn't provide that athlete with either a sufficient level of competition or the opportunity to be surrounded by teammates at their level. In all candor, while I'm sure that there are some exceptions, the quality of JV and freshman coaching at most schools leaves a lot to be desired... and even if it were great, they get precious few practice sessions per season. Many will even argue that players coming from top caliber AAU or travel softball teams step backward during the high school seasons precisely because of competition, personnel surrounding them, and in many circumstances coaching. I don't have a strong opinion on that in basketball, but I can guarantee that is the case in softball. Just pick out a dozen softball beasts and watch 3-4 games during the school season. Then come watch them play a few games at Music City Hits with their A or Gold level travel team in June. The performance level and ability level of that player will be scary different. Of course you have the opposite that can be true. There are a handful of players who are all-district in high school softball, but have a hard time earning field time in top level travel. Those are rarely if ever college prospects.

 

For marginal high school athletes, and many who have the potential but haven't yet become dominant, a year of varsity ineligibility at the sophomore or junior level can be the kiss of death for their athletic careers. I can name dozens who have simply dropped out. They fall behind. They fall off the coach's radar. They lose a lot of drive to keep working through the off season. They lose confidence. They become disconnected. Other activities take new importance and prominence which would have never taken hold without the ineligibility. They hang up their sneakers or cleats.

 

And sure, colleges have rules about transferring and eligibility. Not in all sports mind you, and not between divisions. A girl can play at Trevecca her freshman year, transfer and be eligible at Motlow or Vol State her sophomore year, transfer and be eligible at Vanderbilt her junior year, transfer and take a red shirt at Tennessee her senior year, and be eligible to play at Tennessee in her 5th year. Even within the same division, a girl can play at Belmont her freshman and sophomore years, transfer to MTSU as a junior and take a red shirt year, and play two more years at MTSU. That's exactly what the Clark girl from Mt Juliet is doing right now. In some sports, and in some sports with releases, they don't even have to take a year off. You get 4 years of high school... not 5 years to play 4 years of ball as you do in college, or sometimes 6 with a medical red shirt. Stealing a year from a kid with a legitimate reason to transfer who was honest about the transfer is way over the top in punishment. There is even one person on this board who apparently doesn't even want to toss them the JV bone and ban them from that too. That mentality is so foreign and bizarre to me that I'm sure my mouth immediately fell open when reading that. Screw the kid. What is that? High school comes once, and for most, especially for girls, there is no athletic afterlife following high school. There are plenty of good reasons to transfer. It doesn't make sense that TSSAA rules are more punishing and restrictive than college transfer rules.

 

There is also the concept of "if you are good enough to play college ball they will find you" being bandied about in this thread, and through almost 30 years of coaching, I have heard that idea more than enough, and even as wrong as it was 10 years ago, it is exponentially more wrong in today's environment. I'd concede that if you are Candice Parker or Miss Basketball, or a 6'8" freshman with skills, that statement is true. But the truth ends there. Okay, over all those years I can give you a small handful of anecdotal instances of exception, but those are abnormalities. There is a better opportunity to be "discovered" in basketball than in other girls sports, but there are tons of quality athletes with college level ability who graduate every year without the first nibble from a college coach. There are just as many who have Division I ability but wind up at a NAIA school or a JUCO because nobody "found them." And for the most part, college coaches don't scout high school games like they once did, especially in softball, and basketball has quickly moved in that direction. You'll find them lining the backstops at major exposure tournaments and Nationals and swarming the bleachers at basketball showcase events and AAU Nationals. It is a rare event to see a college coach at a high school game unless that coach is already recruiting that player. They already found them at AAU or ASA or a camp or at an exposure/showcase tournament... and then often because the player took the initiative to contact the coach and provide them with player profiles and skills videos. They dropped by to protect their prospect or to gain upper hand in the recruiting process which is well into the deep stages. On occasion, one might drop because they have 2 scholarships remaining and a list of 8 prospects and they want to make a in person evaluation before vote the 6 extras off the island. Summit or Balcomb or Landers or Insell don't wake up in the morning and say, "hey, I've got tonight free, I think I'll run over to Ezell tonight and watch them play CPA just in case I might see something I like." Nor do they pick up the Tennessean and see that a player is averaging 17 ppg and decide to make a road trip to LaVergne or Cookeville or Macon County for a high school game.

 

Oh yeah, as for the concept that sitting out as a sophomore or maybe even as a junior isn't relevant because nobody is evaluated and recruited until they are a senior or perhaps some as a junior is somewhat accurate only because college coaches simply don't spend much time recruiting school ball any more. But it is completely inaccurate in terms of when players are evaluated and recruited. Three decades ago when I was in high school, coaches didn't look further down the line than rising seniors for recruiting with the exception of the occasional underclass superstar, and for the most part, that was still pretty much the case in the mid 90's. Huge white boards in college coach's offices are filled with the names of 10th, 9th, and even 8th grade girls. Although it is softball, ASA 16U "A" Nationals had more than 350 college coaches in attendance. More than half the players on the 140ish teams in attendance were in the classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011. At the ASA 18U "A" Nationals with the majority of girls in the class of 2008, there were approximately 1/3 of the number of coaches. Why? Because many schools, in the summer of 2007 not only already had their 2007 class booked, but had enough commitments to book their 2008 class, and in many cases their 2009 recruiting class was booked or very close. The only teams looking for a 07 or 08 were ones who unexpectedly lost one who changed their verbal commitment or unexpectedly lost a returning player during the summer because of grades or discipline or transfer. The recruiting world has changed tremendously.

 

I could go on forever, but only about 3 people have read this far anyway.

[ruthlessdcfan08]

Very good read dore83

[ashjan]

My eyes hurt after reading all that. As with anything, there are good and bad examples of this rule. As someone who also has been involved in coaching basketball on the HS and small college level for 20 years I agree with the rule in general. Our program this year has both in and out transfers. Our kid that transferred in for whatever reason should have sit the first half of the year. She has played 14 JV games and has progressed practicing with the varsity. She may start next year and has 2 years remaining. Our kid that transferred out was unhappy after our first 3 scrimmages and was unhappy in her role. Before christmas she transferred to our biggest region rival. She's a sweet kid but there's no way she should be able to play varsity and played against us in JV recently. Bottom line is 95% of all girls in middle TN won't play in college and the top level kids usually aren't the ones transferring around. Also in some areas where there are many schools in a particular area players would jump around left and right if they didn't have to sit. Just my slant.

[dogtrack]

Personally, I have very little use for the TSSAA. My opinion, along with a lot of other people, is that the TSSAA is out of control. The seem to be more interested in control and their authority and their status and financial bottom line than they do for the good of the individual athletes and in many cases the individual schools. They also have very little consistency in their hardship decisions.

 

 

If your facts are correct and based on as situation that occurred at our High School this year, I would have to agree with the above statement.

 

For marginal high school athletes, and many who have the potential but haven't yet become dominant, a year of varsity ineligibility at the sophomore or junior level can be the kiss of death for their athletic careers. I can name dozens who have simply dropped out. They fall behind. They fall off the coach's radar. They lose a lot of drive to keep working through the off season. They lose confidence. They become disconnected. Other activities take new importance and prominence which would have never taken hold without the ineligibility. They hang up their sneakers or cleats.

 

 

There are a lot of reasons that kids drop out of sports and I would think that ineligibility is probably a small percentage although I have no facts. One of my daughters dropped out because the team dynamics were horrable. She wouldn't have considered a transfer for anything. You have to keep in mind that only about 3% of high school players are offered scholarships. A lot of things have to happen to be the one player out of 32 kids that get a scholarship.

 

There is also the concept of "if you are good enough to play college ball they will find you" being bandied about in this thread, and through almost 30 years of coaching, I have heard that idea more than enough, and even as wrong as it was 10 years ago, it is exponentially more wrong in today's environment.

 

 

I don't agree with the above statement. The statement "if you are good enough to play college ball they will find you" doesn't mean that you don't have to work to get noticed. Once again, a lot of things have to fall into place in order to get a college scholarship. Some of which have nothing to do with athletic skill, unfortunately.

 

The recruiting world has changed tremendously.

 

 

I do agree with the above. It will be unfortunate, if it gets to the point that only the above average income can afford access to the exposure circuit. It may already be there. At an exposure event this year, the event coordinator indicated that the NCAA is attempting to shut down events like his. He didn't get into details. This wouldn't help my daughter's situation, but, I can't say that I would disagree with it. The folks that are running the exposure events are sucking money out of parents and Colleges. If you are playing the summer circuit to get a scholarship for a girl, I don't think the risk warrant the expense.

 

I think a lot of parents are like me and just want there kids involved with something to keep them out of trouble. If they get a College scholarship, all the better. As for the original topic, it sounds like the biggest problem is with the inconsistant judgements, which is a personnel problem not neccessarily a problem with the rule.

[BBaller91]

As far as i know you can't be ineligible if you played jv before at a different school.

I could be wrong, but i've never heard of a school that had an ineligible jv player. Is this handbook you have up to date?

 

 

The handbook is on the TSSAA website right now so I assume it is up to date.

 

You can get to it by going to www.tssaa.org