Georgia legislature puts GHSA on notice
To put it succinctly, the state of Georgia is “sticking” it to the Georgia High School Association.
And as someone who has covered prep sports in the state for 30 years, the feeling here is the good-ol’-boy led GHSA brought this on itself.
Earlier this week, executive director Gary Phillips was forced into announcing his retirement after a pair of bills — Senate Bill 203 and House Bill 415 — were introduced in the Georgia General Assembly with the clear intention of disbanding the GHSA and replacing it with a government-run entity.
The Georgia legislature really doesn’t want to rule high school sports, but it does want changes. Significant ones. It started with the ousting of Phillips, who will finish out this school year and be paid one extra year of salary, but where it goes from here is anybody’s guess. Phillips was a sacrifice offered by the GHSA’s Executive Committee — despite a rather choreographed show of support during Monday’s specially called meeting — to appease lawmakers who are “sick” of dealing with complaints levied by constituents against the nonprofit organization.
Reportedly, the deal is the bills will be dropped, but only after the government is satisfied with the new executive director and his plan. Otherwise, as House Bill 415 sponsor John Meadows of Calhoun intimated during the House Education Committee hearing on the bill, the hammer — or in this case, stick — will come down.
“I get more phone calls on this than I do every piece of legislation y’all ever introduce,” Meadows said at the hearing, “and basically, I am sick of it.”
He then admitted the bill is just the start of a process that could include more intervention if needed.
“This is a work in progress,” he said. “This bill is not the answer. This bill is the stick.”
I talked with several northwest Georgia coaches and athletic directors this week, and none are in favor of the government taking over. That, however, wasn’t a show of support for the GHSA, which with its often random rulings and standoffish nature has made many more enemies than friends.
“You better be able to adapt in today’s world, and the GHSA hasn’t,” Northwest Whitfield AD and football coach Josh Robinson said. “You’re never going to make everybody happy, but you’ve got to do the best you can, and they are very hard to deal with sometimes.
“It’s almost like the Wizard of Oz. You’ve got to through the gates and push a button and go through a guard to get to the wizard.”
My problem is that the GHSA’s issues — everything from hardship rulings to financial clarity to reclassifying to a serious lack of communication — have existed for years. So why did the government decide to wield its big stick now?
The GHSA, it seems, ticked off the wrong people this time.
“The legislature is talking about all the complaints they get involving the GHSA,” Robinson said. “But it all boils down to money and influential people. The wrong people got mad, and it spelled doom for Gary Phillips.”
Cartersville, a sports powerhouse, was moved out of a northwest Georgia Class AAAA region despite efforts by the school and its political influences to keep it there. No clear reason to make the school change regions was apparent, yet even an appeal did not sway the GHSA.
Oh, and the sponsor of the senate bill? Meet Bruce Thompson of Cartersville’s District 14.
Buford, another state sports power, was one of the targets of a new rule that forced most city schools to move up a classification. Sen. Renee Unterman of Buford also is a co-sponsor of the bill.
Calhoun managed to sidestep that rule, even though the school was also a target. However, the city school’s administrators were angered when the GHSA decided to place 10 schools in Region 6-AAA, ultimately forcing the region to be subdivided and creating a scheduling nightmare for its programs.
Of course, you’ve already met outspoken Calhoun Rep. Meadows, who did not list Calhoun’s overcrowded region among his litany of complaints.
Phillips has been sacrificed and the bills may go away, but much change is coming.
It is widely rumored that the legislature, tired of dealing with complaints involving student-athlete transfers, wants to adopt a system similar to one that will be put in place in Florida beginning with the 2017-18 school year.
That system — get ready — would eliminate hardship hearings and would make any transfer who starts a school year at a school immediately eligible. There doesn’t have to be a legitimate move into the school district or city, or even a reason given for the transfer.
The proposed bill, again modeled after the Florida bill, reads: “Where the student lives, with whom the student lives, or which school the student attended the previous year shall not be a factor in determining eligibility.”
Let that all soak in for a minute. It’s a nightmare situation for most of northwest Georgia and the state’s rural athletic programs.
“The transfer stuff has gotten ridiculous in Georgia, and this will only make it worse,” Northwest’s Robinson said. “Go look at those rosters of teams that were in the state championships, and most of them had very meaningful transfers. It’s unfortunate the state has gotten to the level that, if I want to win in Georgia, I have to get three or four Division I prospect transfers.
“Now, if this goes through, the rich will just get richer. They say you can’t recruit players, but how does this not open up a huge can of worms?”
The bottom line is the GHSA could have avoided all this with being more proactive instead of just reactive. There are very intelligent people in the organization, but it’s one that has lacked vision for some time and seemingly has gotten lazy.
It appears — and the reasons why are really irrelevant at this point — the state’s government has sent a clear message that it’s up to the GHSA to fix its problem now. The ball is still in the organization’s court, but it’s about to get taken away.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.