Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Last Friday, the Utah State Board of Education approved a new transfer rule that would allow a high school athlete to transfer and become immediately eligible any time as long as that athlete has not participated in a varsity game.
To debate the issue, we brought together Utah Speaker of the House Greg Hughes, an invested politician who is not a member of the school board, with Highland football coach Brody Benson and Herriman coach Dustin Pearce.
Utah High School Activities Association member schools voted 129-9 against the new rule, but the state board approved the new measure, saying there is a much bigger systemic issue of how the UHSAA approves transfer requests.
Between July 2015 and July 2016, the UHSAA received nearly 2,000 requests for transfers and denied nine of them — including two requests from private-based Summit Academy. In August, the UHSAA denied six of 16 transfer requests involving Summit Academy — two were denied completely, while the other four were sub-varsity transfers.
Here is a partial transcript of a few of their remarks. Click the video above for the complete roundtable discussion.
KSL: Speaker Hughes, explain why the State Board of Education feels that this lax transfer rule is a good thing for high school sports in Utah.
Hughes: “We have open enrollment, and when we talk about different schools and our student-athletes, there are very different rules. I think some are worried about the standards … and how it is applied. That’s where the concern came from.
“There’s a hope that we will come up with a much more uniform and applied standard. We’ll learn from parents, teachers and students if it is appropriate to transfer and what are some objective criteria. I think that’s what the school board is after.”
KSL: What do coaches have to say about the overall system of transfers, and the problem of determining who gets to transfer?
Benson: “As an incoming 9th-grader or sophomore, kids can go where they want. Coaches and teachers aren’t complaining about that. It’s having a kid for 2-3 years that you are training, and they can up and leave at any time (unless they play varsity).
“That’s one of the biggest worries for coaches across the board.”
Hughes: “I think that what we’ve done is created an unlevel playing field. If I am a science or a math kid, I can switch to any school without pause. If I like sports, there’s a different set of rules to make that student eligible. What I think people are looking for is clarity.
“One of the things that happens with the (UHSAA) is they are not open and public meetings. They don’t have an agenda like other public meetings that take place; the media and public can’t watch. There’s a confusion about the thresholds; if you have open enrollment for all kids, why not if you play sports? I think you need to clearly articulate that, and the public has to feel that it is being uniformly applied — for the phenom and for the kid who is barely hanging on.”
KSL: Coach Pearce, could this lead to a change in coaching philosophy, where coaches play everyone immediately at the varsity level so that they can’t transfer?
Pearce: “Absolutely. It puts us in a tough situation, where now I can’t just coach my kids. What kind of accountability can I hold them to? If I punish a kid for an academic situation, and he doesn’t agree with that, he can go to Alta or somewhere else; he can play varsity sports because he didn’t feel like he was treated fairly after breaking a team rule. He can go to another high school and play at that school.”
KSL: It seems like this new transfer rule makes it easier for kids to rule the roost. (Coaches) are at the mercy of parents and students liking you or being happy with playing time.
Benson: “My job as a coach is not if a kid likes me. My job is to make sure a kid graduates from high school. That’s my No. 1 goal as a coach. The sport that I coach is secondary to that. But it all plays into that; playing sports, drama, anything like that is extra-curricular. There are other stipulations that kids have to meet in order to do those things.”
Hughes: “I think the school board wanted to arrive at some uniformity. We may not like what that rule would be. But I would say if there is a standard so that kids aren’t ruling the roost, then come out with it. Have an association that complies with public and open hearing rules; that there is transparency and accountability … like we do in other areas of public policy.
“As long as the system is set up in a way that the public has confidence in it, I will look to a good governing board to make those decisions. But right now, it’s almost like you have to have an oracle on a mountain to figure out if you can transfer. It’s a mystery to most.”
Pearce: “We are most worried about mid-year transfers. Before the season starts, I’m getting after my team and make them line up until we do things right. If one of my guys doesn’t like it, he tells mom and dad and leaves.
“That’s what this opens the floodgates for.”
Hughes: “If you have rules that are uniformly enforced and applied, then we know why (transfers are allowed). We can open it up.”
Benson: “The board of education voted on this and it was done, even though there was strong opposition against it. If we want to truly come together for the better of student-athletes and all students, then let’s have that conversation. But we all need to sit down: coaches, administrators, athletic directors, politicians. We can come together and find a solution.”
Hughes: “I thought there was a genuine effort on their part to come together and come up with a compromised language. I was surprised at the hearing that there was so much opposition to it.”
