According to an article written for the Hamilton Spectator, superintendants in the Hamilton Catholic board routinely ignore OFSAA regulations. The article, titled Board's policies called into question over player status mentions that the board allows players to avoid sitting out a year without transferring, even if they have not met the conditions required by the OFSAA transfer policy.
Some key quotes from the article:
He says the practise that allows an athlete transferring from one school to another being allowed to play without the one-year cooling off period is entirely up to the discretion of the superintendent, and it is not uncommon for a student to be allowed to play, with a superintendent's waiver.
The board chairman also denies allegations the superintendent overseeing athletics merely rubber-stamps transfers.
"We have a policy whereby parents, students and schools are allowed to make transfer requests to the superintendent," Daly said. "Ultimately, the superintendent makes the decision in the best interest of the student. We're not going to apologize for that."
Daly also says the board is aware that letting transfer students play in the same year is at odds with the rules set out by the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA).
But he adds schools are aware that the transfer student will not be eligible to play once the school qualifies for GHAC and OFSAA.
"They know that going in," he said. "A player knows he will not be eligible to play in the playoffs."
One of the dirty secrets of high school athletics is the number of students who play right away after transferring even though they should sit out a year. It's interesting to see an article where a school board admits that they condone this. Why? What is the point of the transfer rules if a school board can simply ignore them? Saying that they cannot play in OFSAA isn't good enough. What if the team in question makes the playoffs; how should the team that just missed the playoffs feel? What about the effect on playoff seeding? What about the integrity of the regular season?
If a school board believes that the right to play takes precedence over OFSAA's attempts to prevent powerhouse programs built through recruiting then they should either pull out of their OFSAA region entirely and play among themselves only or they should lobby for a change in the OFSAA policy. Instead the board cheats.
While the Hamilton Catholic Board is the only one that is named in the article, one can be sure it isn't the only one. A lot of it is innuendo but many people believe it to be true. Look at this thread on Hooptown GTA for an example of the belief. Even some coaches claim it happens.
Some have suggested that OFSAA scrap the exceptions altogether and require every student in the province to sit out for a year if they transfer schools, regardless of the reason. Others have suggested a slightly more lenient version where a player must move a minimum distance (I.E. from one part of the province to the other; not from one part of the GTA to another as conveniently happens in some sports on a regular basis).
When one hears stories like the ones below, a stricter rule starts to make sense:
- A football team in Peel had all of its wins stripped after it was revealed that their star player was supposedly living with his coach, according to the documents used to win his transfer appeal.
- Many basketball players living in middle class suburbs around Toronto have moved to economically depressed areas where there just happen to be powerhouse basketball programs.
- A basketball player in Mississauga was called by someone who runs a scouting service and who has connections with a top ten high school program and was told that he could use the scout's home address and transfer without sitting out a year.
- An OFSAA medalist wrestler decides that she doesn't want to take the school bus when her school moves locations and is able to change to another school in her area without sitting out.
- A star basketball player on a weak team "moves" from one parent's home to another so that they can play for the best team in the region. Interestingly, the parents weren't actually separated.
- A football player at a mid-level private school changes to his local public school and wins a transfer appeal, claiming financial hardship as the reason for leaving the school (and not-coincidentally, one of the ways to avoid sitting out a year) . Strangely enough, his Dad is well-known in the financial community and had just been given a significant promotion at a major financial institution.
What do readers think about transfers in general and what other stories are out there? Please feel free to post comments or to e-mail ropssaa@gmail.com.
Also, here is a good summary of the conditions required to avoid sitting out a year, courtesy of a poster on HooptownGTA.
3 comments:
there is one and only one simple way to curtail all this nonsense.
if you transfer from one school to another within the gta(toronto, york, halton, durham, peel) regardless of situation i.e. financial hardship, parents divorced, so called academic reasons, whatever the reason for transfer you MUST sit out a year.
some may say "this is not fair to the legitimate transfer" well too bad students are exactly, that students first. their priority is school, sit out and play the following year. if it happens to be your last year of highschool that's unfortunate but use the time to focus on studying and practicing with the team.
this is the only solution to all these illegal transfers. i have coached basketball in highschool for 10 years and had only one legitimate transfer so how some schools keep getting transfers accepted is a joke to the policy that exists
i dont think its fair if the person has a legitimate reason to switch schools and NOT get to play the following year?
Anonymous, besides moving or changing legal guardianship, what is a legitimate reason?
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