http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincitie ... 963022.htm
Posted on Tue, Jul. 04, 2006
Free agency over?
The Minnesota State High School League has formed an ad hoc committee to study open enrollment because coaches, athletics directors and parents are complaining more often about abuses of the rule.
BY RICK SHEFCHIK
Pioneer Press
Shopping for a good basketball or hockey program for your son or daughter? Better act soon.
It is entirely possible — if not probable — that, by this time next year, the Minnesota State High School League will have responded to a growing chorus of complaints from coaches, athletics directors and parents about open-enrollment abuses by tightening its transfer rules for athletes. That chorus helped make the issue of open enrollment the 2005-06 Pioneer Press high school story of the year.
The league's executive board voted last month to form an ad hoc committee of parents, coaches and administrators to study the issue. They will begin meeting in August, according to MSHSL executive director David Stead, and will present a recommendation to the MSHSL by December.
Minnesota would be following Wisconsin's lead on the transfer issue.
By a 269-76 vote in April, Wisconsin's high school governing body instituted stricter transfer regulations, starting with the 2007-08 school year. Any student who has finished his or her sophomore year will have to sit out one calendar year of athletic competition and practice if he or she transfers to another high school, unless the transfer is necessary because of a change in residence or other extenuating circumstances.
The MSHSL committee will consider similar measures. Currently, there is no loss of eligibility in Minnesota the first time an athlete changes schools through junior year, providing it is done at the start of the school year.
That has led to athletes operating as free agents, according to Ted Blaesing, superintendent of White Bear Lake schools — and coaches going into lower-school locker rooms trying to sell their programs, in the words of Tartan athletics director Lee Alger.
"It's almost getting to the point where you have to have a compliance officer, like they do in the NCAA, to know who's going where," Alger said. "You almost have to protect the people within your boundaries to make sure they go to your school. I think the committee that's been assigned by the high school league is going to attempt to clean that up."
HOW IT WORKS
Open enrollment was introduced by then-Gov. Rudy Perpich and implemented in 1987 under the theory that students seeking a better education would be able to leave one school for another, regardless of residence.
"Is it being used for academic purposes? No," said Blaesing, also president of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators. "When you ask (students) why they open enrolled, day care is the leading reason. Then it becomes place of employment. Way down the line, you get the academic piece and occasionally athletics."
AunDreah Aune, who will be a junior captain of the Minneapolis Roosevelt girls basketball team next season, said she transferred from Minneapolis South after her freshman year for academic and athletic reasons.
"At South, I had to work hard and still didn't come out with grades I knew I could achieve," Aune said. "I didn't play (as much as) I know I could have played. I felt I could have played a lot more varsity than I did. I'm not mad at my coach, but I'm happy with myself now."
Aune has lived in the Roosevelt district all her life, chose to attend South and later regretted it. She said it wasn't easy transferring back to Roosevelt, but she's glad she did and says the option should remain open to athletes without losing a year of eligibility.
Freddy Coleman, the two-sport St. Paul Johnson star who graduated this spring, also contends open enrollment is beneficial for high school athletes.
"I think it's a great thing," said Coleman, who lives in the Harding district but transferred to Johnson after playing football and basketball for Harding as a sophomore. "All these kids play together in the summertime, and I think it's a really good thing they have the opportunity to play together at a competition level."
Aune said she got to know most of her Roosevelt teammates during the summer playing AAU basketball, so they were familiar with each other when the high school season started. She hears a lot of rumors about players changing schools to be with their friends.
"If I'm at the mall, I see a lot of people I know, and they're always saying, 'Do you know such and such is going here?' " Aune said.
The athletes might be in favor of it, but Stead says the feedback he receives from the public runs 90 percent against using open enrollment for athletic purposes.
"I'm getting calls saying there needs to be a change in the rule," he said. "We were hearing from schools, letters from the public, e-mails and telephone calls. People say, 'Yeah, I agree, we need to put an end to this thing.' There will be those who say it should be OK to transfer, but they are in the vast minority. It's not the intent of the rule to get to a better athletic program."
There are four ways a student can transfer without losing athletic eligibility:
• If the student is entering freshman year for the first time;
• If the student's parents move from one school district attendance area to another;
• If the student is taken out of the home for child-protection purposes by the courts;
• If the student transfers on the first day of a school year.
"If you are fully eligible at the end of your freshman, sophomore or junior year at any other school, you are eligible when you begin the next year at a new school," Stead said.
Students transferring under any other circumstances must miss 50 percent of the varsity competition of any sport for one calendar year.
Stead says the committee has no predetermined agenda looking into transfer changes. Committee members first will talk about what open enrollment is and what it is intended to do, in the context of specific cases they know and their personal experiences.
Then the committee will make a recommendation to the league's legislative body.
"They are scheduled to meet in May (2007), but they can meet at any time," Stead said. "We could call a special meeting of the assembly in January or February. If approved by the school representatives, it would be in place by the following year."
If asked to testify before the committee, Roosevelt girls basketball coach Willie Braziel said he would support stricter transfer rules, even though his team improved from 2-16 two seasons ago to 18-10 this past season with the help of seven transfers.
"I didn't create it, but I benefited," Braziel said. "I would say you get a freebie as a freshman only. You can go out for the team. Other than that, you automatically sit half the year. Any transfers after that, you sit 12 months. If you want to transfer junior year, you don't transfer. For long term and short term, there has to be some changes."
Braziel said all of his transfer students, like Aune, would have been at Roosevelt, even if there weren't open enrollment, because they lived in Roosevelt's district. He said their eventual move to the school was more about dissatisfaction with their previous schools than any desire to join a powerhouse at Roosevelt.
Braziel also is coach and district chairman for Minnesota AAU basketball, an offseason program that attracts top players — all-stars who sometimes persuade each other to switch high schools so they can play together all year long. Still, Braziel would like to see each student commit to one program.
"If your child is not playing, or upset for playing for coach X, they're going to come home with that," he said. "Usually, the resolution is a confrontation with the coach, or 'We're out of here.'
"I think we live in the ESPN era, where we only see very successful people. Not all the kids will be that successful. You've got to learn you won't always get your way, or you may not play. There are people better than you. In the business world, you may not be as successful. You send a message: Once you commit to a program, that's your program."
TIME FOR A CHANGE
Concerns about open-enrollment abuses long have been a reality, Wayzata athletics director Jaime Sherwood said. Although the Minnesota Department of Education does not ask why students transfer, at least 10,000 students in grades 9-12 have used open enrollment to change schools in each of the past three years.
"Kids are choosing schools for athletics," Sherwood said. "The sky is falling."
Sherwood said he finally senses a gathering concern on the part of parents, administrators, the high school league and the media.
"It's the right time to investigate," he said.
He cautioned, however, that smaller or declining school districts would not necessarily support a change in transfer rules.
"Many school districts look at it as a way to fill their buildings in times of declining enrollment," Sherwood said. "They are able to bring neighboring students in because of course offerings or extracurriculars. You have to make sure they're a part of it."
Blaesing is in contact with superintendents and school boards throughout the state, and he doesn't anticipate much opposition to a rule that would restrict athletic transfers.
"Unfortunately, students often make their decisions based on where they think they'll get greater (athletic) exposure," Blaesing said. "High school athletics do not exist for that purpose. We're not here to advance kids on to college or professional sports. I would applaud the state high school league, coaches and athletic directors for attempting to rein in some of the transferring between schools, simply for athletic purposes."
Rick Shefchik can be reached at
rshefchik@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5577.
These programs will be providing wonderful competition and even some transfers to help make all the girls teams stronger than ever.