By Stephen Smoot
“Once a school gets into a situation where athletes are transferring out, it’s a death spiral.”
Delegate Dana Ferrell, (R-Kanawha) shared this point with WSAZ, a television station serving Charleston and Huntington. He refers to a now three-year-old rule allowing athletes to transfer from one high school to another without eligibility penalty.
“In scholastic sports, that was all about being part of your community, working with teammates through the good and the bad.” He then referred to the hypothetical too often made real, where a parent-coach confrontation can lead to a situation where a player will “shop themselves somewhere else.”
For more than four decades, Donnie Kopp prowled the sidelines and also had a legendary career as a head coach. He won titles in basketball at Washington Irving High School, then took a strong Pendleton County team to the state tournament last season before retiring.
“I grew up playing in the 70s,” said Kopp. “If you don’t play in your school district, you don’t play.” He further stated that “you should never place sports above doing the right thing.”
Gary Smith, a member of the West Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame and a 35-year head coach for Franklin, then Pendleton County High School, said, “I’m not in favor of it. There’s not any room for it. You need guidelines and sidewalls instead of a free for all.”
Wayne Ryan, West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission executive director, agrees that the current permissive law causes problems. He noted two major problems. First, student-athletes who came up together playing in youth leagues and middle schools suddenly lose positions in high school to players transferring in.
Kopp does not oppose academic based transfers, but argues that “I have many friends from Clarksburg who moved during high school, not to play for a better team necessarily, but because the parents had to, or wanted to, move. It made no difference; they still had to sit out for a calendar year.”
The second issue Ryan brought up lay in the effect that open transfers have had on competition overall. “It’s made some of the ‘haves’ have more and the ‘have nots’ have less,” noted Ryan. He added to WSAZ that he opposes “the stacking of so-called all star teams.”
Two ideals come into conflict on the issue. Advocates believe that a student-athlete should have no barriers to pursue opportunities anywhere he or she might find them. That said, those who oppose the rule point out, as Ryan does, that “it’s also impacted communities.”
Traditionally high school sports provide a center space for adults and youth to celebrate community. Keyser High School athletes, regardless of sport, yell “Keyser Pride” when taking the court, track, field, mat, or other sporting situation. With former KHS athletes serving in local police, fire services, or even joining the military in significant numbers, a correlation between instilled community pride and public service could exist.
While Republicans in the West Virginia Legislature and the WVSSAC director argue to alter the rules, some doubt that the open transfer rule for high school students will disappear. Said Smith, “It’s a problem, no doubt about it, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
