Student-athletes shouldn’t
be the only ones disciplined after the recent Winter Park High School transfer violations, Chris Hays writes.
Four Winter Park players were unable to play in the opening game of the high school football season this past Friday night.
They were being penalized following allegations of shady maneuvers to gain admission at a school that presumably would help their careers. Those involved appear to have decided the players would have a better chance of winning than they did at Timber Creek, the school they left.
All four of the players could miss their entire senior seasons of football eligibility if they do not win their appeal hearing next week.
But why is it that the kids are the only ones getting slapped with sanctions and embarrassed by media outlets? Yes, even the Orlando Sentinel. These kids shouldn’t be the fall guys.
It’s the adults who should really be embarrassed in this matter.
The kids are penalized, but it was the adults who carried out the alleged improprieties that have landed these kids on the sideline. It was the adults who are accused of skirting the protocol for leases and addresses in the Winter Park High area to gain acceptable paperwork and clearance to enroll at the school.
Even if the students pushed hard for the transfers, the parents are the ones who make it happen and should stop the process if it cannot be done within the parameters of the rules.
Parents, coaches, administrators … all of them are guilty.
If you were in on the act from the beginning, you are definitely guilty. But if you also turned your head while it was happening, you are guilty, too.
Kids don’t provide manipulated leases and fake addresses or become landlords for other promising players’ families. Adults do. The school should be hit right where it counts, right in the athletic budget. Fine them. Make them pay for allowing these improprieties to take place under their supposed leadership.
And let’s not point the finger in one direction. Winter Park just happened to get turned into FHSAA for review. But what about the hundreds of other transfers all over Orange County during the past five years? Does anyone think all of those were actually legitimate? I doubt it. Orange County Public Schools, in the organization’s defense, cannot police the transfer status of all these individuals. Neither can the Florida High School Activities Association. There simply is not enough resources to do so. Each school, however, has the means. Administrators apparently, however, lack the desire to turn away transfer athletes — especially those who might help beef up a school’s win column.
These high school players are raised by adults who are supposed to have their best interests in mind, but when those best interests are considered to be above the legal parameters and guidelines set forth by the FHSAA, it’s not serving anyone’s best interest.
OK, well, maybe the school’s best interest, and in the end, it’s the schools that should be penalized. The schools allowed the enrollment of the athletes in the first place. I hear the dialogue: Parents: We have the proper paperwork.
School: They had the proper paperwork.
Coaches: They must have the proper paperwork if the school approved it.
Parents know they won’t get in trouble, but they seem to forget that their kids might. Schools just assume the paperwork is legit. Coaches? Well, coaches figure if they’re in school, then they must be legit.
Ignorance is bliss. Everyone wins.
Then county and state administrators chime in. The paperwork is questionable; there needs to be an investigation. Oops. Maybe I’m just old and come from an era during which loyalty and commitment and being true to your school were characteristics that meant something. When I was growing up, you went to the school zoned for the district within which you lived. You played sports for that school with pride. If your teams lost, you took it on the chin and didn’t run away. If you were good enough, you still got recruited, even when you lost.
That’s why I have respect for guys like linebacker Christian Jones, who is now with the Detroit Lions. Jones played at FSU, but before that he endured a lot of losses at Lake Howell. During Jones’ final two seasons at Lake Howell, the Silver Hawks won just three games.
They were 0-10 in 2008, but he didn’t scurry off to greener pastures. He endured a three-win season his senior year.
If you have talent, you will be found. Jones is proof and there are numerous others who have overcome the stigma of playing for a team with a losing record. Former UCF star Brandon
Marshall, a Seattle Seahawks receiver in his 13th season in the NFL, also played at Lake Howell. He graduated in 2002 and those Lake Howell teams only won eight games during his four years (8-32). Former UCF player
Willie Mitchell endured a similar high school career at Deltona’s Pine Ridge prior to being recruited by former Knights coach
George O’Leary. Mitchell helped Pine Ridge to a 9-2 mark and a playoff berth his sophomore year. But in 2009 and 2010, the Panthers were 1-19, losing every game his senior season. Mitchell stayed at Pine Ridge, despite rampant transfers among his top peers in Volusia County.
If officials — adults — keep turning a blind eye, they’ll have to change the name of Orange County to Dade County North. The Miami area highlights how transferring has gone awry.
State legislators forced the FHSAA to relax almost all of its major transfer rules, letting players move around freely unless a school is at full enrollment capacity.
But these kids are being held accountable for what is mostly not their responsibility. They are losing an entire football season whenever their moves don’t meet FSHAA standards.
At least let them go back to the school from which they came, but let’s not cut them off at the knees. What good does that do anyone?
The culprits — adults — glide through unscathed.
Meanwhile the athletes sit on the sideline wishing they had never listened to any of those so-called elders whom they are supposed to respect.