In 1988 the Minnesota Legislature adopted Open Enrollment,
which meant that any high school student could enroll in any school at any time
for any reason. In 2007 the Minnesota State High School League in effect
amended Open Enrollment in order to place limits on the opportunity for
athletes to benefit from Open Enrollment.
Specifically, when a student-athlete transfers high schools,
he or she has to sit out a year of athletics, at least in theory.
The reasons for this policy, it seems, included 1)
recruiting. Parents, and sometimes even school officials, it was rumored, were
out soliciting elite athletes to come to their schools, and there was nothing
to prevent such a practice. The result was 2) the creation of super-teams. At
that time, the St. Paul Central girls basketball team was Exhibit A. Girls had
transferred into Central from all over town to create what is still regarded as
the best girls basketball team ever to play in Minnesota.
Remember when the new transfer rule was going to stamp out
all of that?
The problem with the transfer rule was—well, there are any
number of problems with the transfer rule. First and foremost, it denies
athletes equal protection of the law. But, secondly, it just doesn’t seem to be
working. There seem to be more transfers than ever, and almost nobody sits out.
Equal Protection?
But, first and foremost, the whole point of Open Enrollment
was that schools would have to compete for students. High quality schools would
gain students, and poor quality schools would lose students. And, since state
funding is based on the number of students, bad schools would not only lose
students, they would lose funding and eventually they would go out of business.
The good schools would survive, and the quality of education in Minnesota would
improve for everybody. That’s the idea.
So, from 1988 until today, kids who are in band or choir, or
are artsy, or they build robots, or they’re good at math, or whatever, they can
enroll wherever they want, whenever the want, for any reason. If you’re an
athlete, you can’t do that without sacrificing your sport. That denies athletes
equal protection of the law, not because the Legislature exempted athletes from
Open Enrollment, but because an extra-legal, voluntary association decided that
it should be so.
That’s not fair and, I believe, it’s not legal. The
Constitution says that everybody should have equal protection under the law. Of
course, it’s only illegal if somebody with legal authority says so. But somebody
might do that soon.
Justice Delayed
Justice delayed is justice denied, they say. And several
parents are now suing the league about justice delayed. One of the issues is
that if a student is declared to be ineligible, you can appeal, but the appeal
is likely to take so long that the athletic season in question is over by the
time the appeal is completed. One student was declared eligible for her sport
on appeal, but that decision didn’t come until about the time of the state
tournament.
If the courts find in favor of the students, then an appeals
process would have to be made vastly more timely. A reasonable measure of
timeliness would be that if a kid appeals and is found to be eligible, they
could actually play their sport within that season.
Anything less would be “justice delayed, justice denied.”
Legislative Audit
Then, in addition to the lawsuit, the state Legislative
Auditor is going to be auditing the league and its transfer policy at the
request of state legislator, Rep. Bob Dettmer. Some of you know that Dettmer
was the long-time Forest Lake wrestling coach. When he says he’s got no axe to
grind, no problem with the MSHSL, you can take him at his word.
Yet, when his request for a legislative audit was announced,
the news article included complaints about the way the East Ridge football
program was treated by the league. It turns out that East Ridge used an
ineligible football player who lied to the school about his place of residence.
When this came to light, the league forfeited a whole slew of wins and a pair
of section titles. Meanwhile, well, there was nothing anybody could do to the
ineligible player.
So, There Are
Problems
So there are problems. Appeals take too long. Punishments
often target the innocent rather than the guilty. And, again, the rule
discriminates against a whole class of Minnesotans—they being high school
athletes.
And isn’t that a pretty high price to pay for a policy that,
in turn, doesn’t seem to actually be accomplishing its objectives?
But, wait. To be fair, here are the numbers, as reported by
the Star Tribune, which has just
taken an in-depth look at the whole issue, though I have to say that they seem
to have overlooked the main points. Which are, the transfer rule denies
athletes equal protection of the law, and that there are so many kids who
transfer and play.
So, the numbers reported by the Strib are as follows. There have been about 2,400 transfers into
Minnesota high schools this school year, about 1,400 of them within the state.
About 480 were pursuant to Open Enrollment, and about 427 to families changing
residences. (That leaves about 500 “other,” and there’s no indication what
those situations are.)
When transferring, a student first applies to the new AD for
eligibility, and the league agreed with 92 percent of the AD’s rulings. The
league overruled the ADs 108 times. (If that’s the 8 percent, then the 92
percent would be about 1,200 cases.)
There were 139 appeals. Presumably these are cases where the
league ruled a player to be ineligible. (I doubt if very many people would
appeal a ruling that a student was eligible.)
47 appeals were approved (presumably, a student being found
to be eligible) and 58 were denied. The others remain in process. (So, in other
words, the “justice delayed” scenario applies to about 10 percent of transfers.
The “equal protection” concern would apply to all of them.)
What the Strib’s
numbers don’t show is how many transfers ultimately play sports and how many
sit out. If the 58 appeals denied are the only ones who sit out, that’s only 4
percent. But, surely some students go ahead and sit out a year without
appealing. Let’s assume that just 1 in 10 students who are ruled ineligible go
to appeal. Now you’ve got 40 percent (of 1,400) sitting out, and 60 percent
(840) who are playing. I would think, actually, that the number is much higher
than 840—say, at least 1,000—who transfer each year without giving up a year of
eligibility.
Remember when the transfer rule was going to stamp that out?
Instead, there’s maybe 1,000 kids each year who find some loophole to go
through to maintain their eligibility. Anyone who follows girls basketball as
closely as many of our readers do, in fact, know perfectly well that the
percent of transfers who maintain their eligibility is way beyond 60 percent.
90 percent or more would seem more accurate.
Of course, many of those fall under those 427 families that
changed residence. But you and I also know that in many, many of those cases,
the transfer from one school to another comes first. The new house comes after.
So, in short, transferring by athletes remains rampant. And,
when a girl transfers from Rochester to Irondale or Waseca to Lakeville, it’s
probably because mom or dad got a new job. But when she transfers from Hopkins
to Eastview or Eden Prairie to Chanhassen, mom or dad’s job probably had
nothing to do with it. Again, you and I both know that in the vast majority of
cases, the transfer is for basically athletic purposes.
Remember when the transfer rule was going to stamp that out?
And, yet, somewhere in the range of 60 to 90 percent or more
(probably a little more) of such students maintain their athletic eligibility
in spite of whatever the rule says.
And, so, ultimately, that’s why the transfer rule should be
rescinded. It’s analogous to the MSHSL’s new policy of denying media
credentials to the state tournament to Web sites that rank and rate and
evaluate players (“recruiting Web sites”). And then, after being denied a media
credential, I bought a ticket to the first session and saw Kevin Anderson, Gary
Knox and Chuck Thompson sitting at courtside. Okay, now I want a pass.
Same here: If Brooke Bowlin and Rachel Garvey and Martha
Kuderer never missed a day of athletic competition, then it just isn’t fair
that Katey Brattland and Lizzie Odegard and Sam Trammel ever did.
Super-Teams
And, as far as “super-teams” are concerned, well, okay, we
haven’t had a team as good as St. Paul Central 2007, though obviously there are
some Hopkins fans who are going to disagree with me on that. Which just proves
my point.
The Hopkins girls have won 4 out of 6 state titles (with 5
out of 6 state championship game appearances) and 6 state titles over a period
of 13 years. Among the boys Hopkins has won 6 of 12 and 7 of 15. And I mean no
disrespect when I ask where all those Hopkins ballplayers actually live. And
who can actually compete with the Hopkins boys? Year in, year out, it’s Apple Valley,
it’s Lakeville North, it’s Osseo, it’s Eden Prairie, the usual suspects.
And regardless of where the kids live, the point remains
that super-teams have become more and more entrenched since the passage of the
transfer rule that was supposed to stamp them out.
So, again, with all the problems that seem to be endemic to
the transfer rule, isn’t that just too much of a price to pay in light of the
fact that the rule isn’t accomplishing its objectives?
