WIAA’s transfer waiver process needs more transparency
sure there are a lot of parents, players and administrators who would love to wield the power Carl Ashley displayed last week.
The Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge told the Wisconsin Inter-scholasthing tic Athletic Association to open its records with regard to certain waiver requests of its transfer rule, information he needs to in order help shape his ruling on the case of Brown Deer senior John Lovelace.
Simply put the judge needs to see how the association has dealt with cases like Lovelace’s to determine if the temporary injunction the Brown Deer senior received to play in the boys basketball tournament should become permanent.
That level of transparency is someI’m aggrieved parties don’t usually receive when it comes to unsuccessful waiver requests of the WIAA’s transfer rule. It causes the process to be questioned.
If there is one gripe among those who have failed to receive a requested waiver of the transfer rule, it’s that question of transparency. They don’t know all the exceptions the WIAA has granted or denied previously, so it’s sometimes hard to know if the ruling they received was fair. That information isn’t available to the public and when you’re left to wonder, you sometimes think the worst.
So the question isn’t is there a need for more transparency, it is how can it be achieved in a way that protects confidentiality but also provides enough information to make people who come up on the short end of a decision still feel good about the process.
Often the circumstances of transfers are private matters that really do need to be kept private. Kids are dealing with issues of bullying, mental health or worse.
Family situations might not be the best. Completely opening the books on those situations would do more harm than good.
Judge Ashley is viewing cases with redacted information. Would that provide enough protection of privacy while giving some greater insight into what types of situations merited waivers and which did not? Most people know the rules, it’s the exceptions that have people scratching their heads.
That said there are a number of instances when I’ve heard about waiver requests made for a reason I know has no chance of being granted. That doesn’t mean people are any less upset. I also believe the WIAA and the Board of Control, when it hears appeals, are looking for ways to allow kids to play as soon as possible.
That said the Lovelace case is perplexing. A transfer from Wauwatosa East who practiced with Brown Deer all season, his request to move his eligibility date from a Tuesday to the prior Friday seemed reasonable. Brown Deer’s first WIAA postseason tournament game was Friday, Feb. 19, and his return date would have been Tuesday, Feb. 23, without the injunction. Under that circumstance, the team would have had to win two games without Lovelace before he would have been able to play.
The WIAA made a huge accommodation for schools and students last summer when it approved an alternate fall season to be played in the spring that aimed to give communities that weren’t ready to have fall sports at the traditional time the option of doing so later in this pandemic year. It was a great idea, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of someone else losing the chance to compete. In a normal year, Lovelace would have returned a week before the postseason and played the year out.
With the temporary injunction Lovelace waited 361 days to play varsity competition rather than 365 as the WIAA requires for students who have started their sophomore year or are older. In hindsight you could say he could have waited, but his presence was a big reason why Brown Deer won the regional title.
The case is almost moot considering Brown Deer lost in sectional semifinal to state-tournament bound Pewaukee. If Ashley rules in the WIAA’s favor, Brown Deer would have to forfeit its tournament wins and regional championship but Lovelace will still have the experience of salvaging a piece of his senior season.
Whatever the call, the judge will make it with the kind of information we’d love to have.