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SALT LAKE CITY — One meeting wasn’t enough to allow the Utah State Board of Education to score a touchdown on sweeping reform of transfer regulations surrounding high school student-athletes.
But the drive hasn’t been killed off yet.
The board’s standards and assessments committee voted Thursday in an open-door meeting to send transfer reform policies to a vote of the entire committee with no recommendation after a unanimous decision could not be reached.
The reforms, which originally included allowing high school students and student-athletes the ability to transfer an unlimited number of times in their careers, were pared down to allow just one “free transfer” to each student during the course of his or her career.
Even that may be too much, Utah High School Activities Association Executive Director Rob Cuff argued.
“Freedom of movement in sports dramatically alters the competitive environment in sports,” Cuff said in an impassioned opening statement at the board meeting. “There are no sports organizations with continuity of teams at any level that permit free transfer of players. Why? Unregulated movement of athletes destroys the movement that makes activities worthwhile.”
Opponents of the amendment argued changes could leave open a chance for the Wild Wild West between high school coaches seeking to recruit and re-recruit their teams every year.
“If we open this door, I’m most concerned about the arms race we see in club sports,” Juab School District superintendent Rick Robbins said. “You spend money or you don’t participate. I fear this opens that door, and we live in a rural area so it would benefit my kids. But that isn’t the right thing to do. It isn’t what sports and the UHSAA is all about.”
The committee moved to bring the recommendation to the full school board Friday afternoon, even as board members like Spencer Stokes expressed significant reservations about the state’s current policies.
Stokes routinely pressed Cuff during a lengthy back-and-forth segment of the meeting to allow the state office of education increased access to the UHSAA’s minutes and board meetings. Cuff helped assuage concerns by promising to meet more regularly with state representatives and even granting an extra seat at the organization’s board meetings.
“We feel like we can be more transparent,” Cuff said. “We feel like we can meet together more often. I think we can find some common ground.”
The meeting including public statements and passionate pleas from a largely one-sided crowd in opposition to expanding the state’s transfer rules. Current regulations do not allow for a student-athlete to transfer beyond the school where he or she openly enroll as a freshman or sophomore unless he or she sits out one year from varsity sports.
Cuff admitted it isn’t a perfect rule, but the numbers on transfers reflect that it is working to the best possible extent.
The UHSAA received 1,994 transfer requests during the 2015-16 academic year, denying nine and approving 32 on appeal. Most of the transfer requests approved from the 117 public schools, 16 public charter schools and 17 private schools governed by the UHSAA came from teenagers whose families moved into new boundary areas or faced other hardships strong enough to earn a waiver.
Expanding it is an even worse idea.
“This rule is a bad idea,” said Jason Boren of Highland. “You ask any parent, and they would rather have transfer rules be more stringent than less stringent.”
The board changed the language of the amendment from allowing unlimited transfers to only a “transfer to another high school once during the remainder of the student’s high school career,” and invited the public to weigh in on the passionate subject of high school sports.
“If you vote in favor of this initiative, you are voting in favor of super schools and super leagues. We will have kids transfer to play sports,” Duchesne superintendent David Brotherson said. “I would counsel to use your leadership on the Utah High School Activities board to change for the better, instead of changing the governance of that association.”
Cuff worries that adding additional transfer possibilities will encourage student-athletes to transfer on a whim — some attempting to do so multiple times within one season.
It’s a contentious debate and one that made front-page headlines in both major newspapers in Salt Lake City before Thursday’s board meeting.
“Having a transfer rule deters those who don’t have a hardship,” Cuff said. “Most who apply for hardship or apply as a full-family move get approved (to transfer). Having a ‘freebie’ would open up the floodgates to more movement.”
Cuff cited a free transfer rule instituted by Colorado that took all restrictions off movement between schools. The state later amended its policies to make legislation look more like those offered by the UHSAA.
“We had total chaos athletically and academically,” Cuff said of Colorado during the free-transfer period. “That constant movement is going to create heartache.”
Thursday’s meeting was also the first major opportunity the board of education had to discuss various issues with the UHSAA, Stokes said.
“It is difficult to have a dialogue with an organization that is so massive, and there is not a committee that you can have a negotiation with,” Stokes said. “Whatever they agreed to can be undone five to six months later, and then we start all over. It could take several years.”
The board of education will meet Friday at 2:45 p.m. MT to vote on the matter or decide if the amendment should be revisited in October.
“I firmly believe we have the same goal: That students are the focus and the reason for the association,” Cuff said. “It is the position of the UHSAA that the UHSAA rules have not been adequately discussed between the UHSAA and the state board of education.”
