Opening day rant: It's time to take the high school transfer rule off the books

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/ FROM KEITH GROLLER With apologies to those who have already had golf and tennis matches, today truly marks the start of a new high school sports year. But instead of a fresh start with an optimistic outlook, it's the same old issues that are drawing attention. Lots of attention. And it's not good. Nothing has caused more hard feelings, bad blood and even the breakup of leagues like kids transferring, often with allegations of recruiting being involved. However, at this point it's clear that everybody should just throw up their hands and say kids can go wherever they want to go to play. Because there is not a more meaningless rule in the PIAA handbook than the one that states a student-athlete can't transfer for athletic reasons. Even when district officials know what's happening and they try to enforce the rule, they are overtuned by the PIAA or have to rescind it in some form as was the case this week with Boise Ross and Petey Hernandez. I sympathize with new district chairman Jason Zimmerman, the Northwestern Lehigh athletic director, who told colleague Stephen Miller that he hadn't slept for two nights because he felt bad that the committee had blocked Ross and Hernandez on Tuesday. Zimmerman is a good guy. "We're here for the kids," he said. But he also said: "We want kids going to school where they belong and honoring the game. That's really what we want." Sadly, kids and their parents now believe they "belong" to any school that will have them as long as that school serves their needs. Things like honor, tradition and commitment to a particular school district or school just because you live in that town or were part of that program for years are easily tossed aside. Remember, we clearly live in the "it's all about me" generation. It's not just about the kids and their parents either. There are a lot of horror stories out there about coaches and their surrogates openly going after kids and luring them to their programs. The kids and parents only care about themselves, and frankly, so do many -- but not all -- coaches. They know they have to win to keep their jobs and you only win, in any sport, with good players. If your feeder system isn't producing enough kids, you go out and raid another school's feeder program. To me, it's not what high school sports should be all about, but that's what it has become and what we saw this week with a much-publicized hearing and then a retraction two days later was all a giant exercise in futility. And this is not an attack on private schools as they lose as many kids to public schools, or more, than they get in return. It's merely time to declare free agency, and get rid of a rule that obviously can't be enforced. And considering the parental meddling and how almost everyone needs to be placated by their coach or they'll threaten to leave, you may see kids play three different sports at three schools in one school year. And then head to another school the following year. This process is obviously flawed and easily circumvented. I have never understood why a school losing a kid to another school had to "challenge" a transfer to have the matter looked into. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's generally a duck. Same goes for transfers with athletic intent and I will maintain that 95 percent of these transfers involving athletes are for athletic reasons on some level. Former district chairman Jack Wabby used to tell me that you had to "trust in the integrity of the principals." But that's a risky proposition because schools like to scratch each other's back and maintain certain alliances. "You let this one go through and I'll take care of you next time," I can hear one principal saying to another. I have no idea why Pius X backed off in this case, but I would not doubt that threats were made against the Royals, who have been accused of a lot different stuff over the years and can't get into the Colonial League primarily because Colonial members have long cast a wary eye toward Roseto and how the school gets some of its athletes. Maybe Pius X was told it better back off or someone was going to try to lower the boom on them. I don't know. What I do know is that it's time to take the rule off the book and let everybody go where they want to go because while this transfer stuff does sell newspapers and draws hits to websites, it's all been proven to be a waste of time and effort.