WIAA transfer rule inconsistent at best; hypocritical at worst

Nearly a year after the fact, Central Valley High School was forced to forfeit its entire 2004-05 boys basketball schedule due to an administrative oversight. Meanwhile, individuals statewide transfer schools with impunity.

The inconsistency of enforcement is making a mockery of Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules.

To recap, Luke Clift had “choiced” into CV from East Valley prior to his freshman year and played varsity for the Bears. Activities coordinator Butch Walter said, as he interpreted the choice rule, Clift was eligible.

Some nine months later the error was brought to Walter’s attention and he self-reported. The WIAA came down hard, even threatening District 8 with the loss of state berths.

Coming when it did, the WIAA ruling was largely symbolic. The league season was long over, no one was affected and no other coaches in the Greater Spokane League questioned the issue.

“It wasn’t a kid we hid,” said CV coach Rick Sloan. “The family was real up front about what they had to do to get eligible. What’s funny is I don’t think anyone in the whole area must have known the difference.”

But Clift became a scapegoat, the team’s season and Sloan’s career win-loss record was tainted, although everyone knows what they accomplished. The team finished 13-8 overall.

Under the WIAA transfer rule, students are eligible for varsity after an “immediate and bona fide change of residence into a school district,” or following a year’s enrollment at the new school if they do not move.

There are exceptions concerning hardship, transfer from private to public schools or from junior highs with ninth-graders to high schools

The rule according to the WIAA handbook, is “preventative in nature and is devised to eliminate the incentive to transfer schools when the motivation is for athletic purposes.”

Right.

People find ways to use rules or circumvent them. Transfers for athletic reasons have become routine.

There have been instances locally where an athlete played softball on one team before spring break a few years ago and on another when school resumed. Another played basketball at one school on a Friday and was suited up and on the bench at another the following Tuesday.

Several GSL girls basketball teams have players who left one school or district for another. All were OK’d by schools comfortable that the moves were for “the right reasons.”

In a recent Seattle Times story, a Kennedy High football player quit his team after a playoff win and was told he wouldn’t be able to play basketball until after the football season was over. He had played football at Franklin as a freshman before switching schools and playing basketball at Kennedy that year. Now his dad says they might transfer again, saying in the story that they live in the Rainier Beach attendance area.

Spokane Public Schools allow one unquestioned move so it’s not uncommon for athletes to switch. In the Central Valley District, the fact that CV offered an agriculture class while University did not used to be a way to transfer.

Kind of makes Clift’s move after eighth grade to a school where his dad had taught rather inconsequential and CV’s subsequent punishment awfully extreme.

“I completely agree with the spirit of the rule because of recruiting kids,” said Sloan. “I’m all for the rule as long as it is more fair and consistent.”

That is the problem. WIAA transfer rules are not consistent. The WIAA could insist that students make a choice and stick with it. Make the sale of their home or physical change of residence incumbent if they want to play elsewhere, not just rent or perhaps claim an address for appearances.

Shift schools otherwise and you lose a year of eligibility, no ifs, ands or buts.

There always will be true hardships and extenuating circumstances for districts to deal with individually.

But for the WIAA to penalize Central Valley so severely well-after the fact when it reported its own mistake, and then threaten District 8 when more blatant instances of transfer for athletics are met with a blind eye seems inconsistent if not hypocritical.

If a transfer or recruiting rule can’t be enforced fairly and consistently, there’s no sense having the rule at all.