AIA rule can penalize returning athletes
Player to sit due to his AIA-linked classwork
The same week Andrew King was cleared to play all of the Arizona Interscholastic Association basketball season for defending 6A champion Phoenix Desert Vista, Isaac Hymes was told he will be ineligible the first nine games.
Both players are coming from national prep academies and returning to their previous AIA schools.
But Hymes will be forced to sit part of the upcoming season because, while playing at a basketball academy he took classes from a separate school group that offers AIA-sanctioned athletics, none of which he participated in. King also took online classes, but at a school that does not offer AIA athletics.
That difference, according to AIA rules, is why King is able to compete in the full season.
King, a 6-foot-3 junior guard who committed to Rice, played this season at PHH Prep in Phoenix, which has already gotten 41 games in. He helped Desert Vista win the 6A title last season as a sophomore and will return there in time for the upcoming season.
Hymes, a 6-foot-8 sophomore, returned to his neighborhood school at Goodyear Millennium, after spending his freshman season with national power Hillcrest Prep, which plays a national schedule and is located in Gilbert.
Neither PHH Prep nor Hillcrest part of the AIA.
King was able to re-enroll after taking online classes at Primavera, an online school that doesn’t have basketball, while playing for PHH Prep.
Hymes was taking classes online from Sequoia Pathway in Buckeye, a charter school, while playing basketball for Hillcrest. Sequoia Pathway has several campuses in the Valley with the Maricopa school new to the AIA this school year. Hymes wasn’t taking classes at the Mar
are
icopa school but it’s still part of the Sequoia Pathway family.
AIA Executive Director David Hines said that since King was enrolled at Primavera, an online school with no sports, he is eligible the full season because he is coming back to his AIA school. Hymes was taking classes at a school group that does offer AIA sports.
A new bylaw was written into the AIA transfer rules that allows kids to come back to their AIA school without sitting out games if it is coming from a place that isn’t competing in the AIA or the Canyon Athletic Association.
It states, “A transfer from an AIA member school (sending school) to a non-AIA member school that does not offer any interscholastic athletics, will not be considered a transfer.
“A subsequent transfer from that nonAIA member school back to the sending school will also not be considered a transfer.”
“What complicates things,” Hines said, “is, let’s say he plays at PHH hoops. The question asked is, ‘Did they play any games that were in the CAA or high school teams that were part of a league competition for an association. If not, they are technically like a club team. In that case, we have not started the season. You can play for a club team out of sea
son.”
The AIA season, after being pushed back twice now because of the pandemic, is scheduled to begin Jan. 18.
Millennium coach Ty Amundsen said that Hymes won his hardship with the AIA not to lose an entire basketball season, but he must sit out the first half of the 18-game season, because of the transfer move.
“But for him not to be fully cleared is still a mystery,” Amundsen said. “He’s at his neighborhood school. He wanted to come back to his home school. He didn’t play for any AIA teams.”
Hymes was enrolled for about four weeks to start the 2019-20 school year, his father, Kwame Hymes said. But Kwame said he tore up the AIA paperwork, which he didn’t sign, and instead his son played for Hillcrest, where his older son K.J. played during his senior season while attending classes at Millennium. It was easier then to get him to Inspire Courts in Gilbert, where the Hillcrest basketball team trains and plays its home games, he said.
“I’m assuming in their investigation, the stuff brought forward in the hardship, there was probably something, but due to circumstances, what the hardship said, ‘Well, we’ll give you half.’ It’s depending on the circumstances.”
After COVID-19 hit last spring, and businesses and schools were being closed down, Kwame Hymes said the decision was made to have his son come to Millennium to make it easier on the family.
Isaac’s mom was able to get her son to Inspire Courts because of her job in Chandler. But since COVID-19, she has had to work from home because her Chandler office has been closed.
“He was registered (at Millennium) for a month, before the school started,” Kwame said. “But I tore up the AIA paperwork because he didn’t participate in sport. He wasn’t going to play there. We were following the AIA rules. He didn’t play any games for Millennium.
“He was there for four weeks and left. I don’t think he should have any type of suspension. He came back because of COVID. He couldn’t commute. My wife was working from home because of COVID. And he’s being penalized.”
Amundsen has lost several players since last year’s run to the 5A final, including Gatorade Arizona Player of the Year DaRon Holmes, who started this season at Montverde (Fla.) Academy before returning home during the Christmas break, and transferring to AZ Compass Prep in Chandler to finish his senior season.
Holmes is immediately eligible to play for AZ Compass, which is 13-0 and ranked 15th in the nation by MaxPreps, because AZ Compass plays in national Grind Sessions that doesn’t have transfer rules like the AIA.
“I don’t think kids should be penalized anyway,” Amundsen said. “Who are we to say he has to sit out?
“Everyone’s situation is different. It might not be the right fit. You only have four years to complete high school. I’m under the umbrella that if you want to transfer, don’t let the kid sit at all. I don’t think kids should sit at all, especially if they’re coming from a prep school.
“If Isaac wanted to come out to Compass Prep today, he could play at 3 o’clock. That’s how you’re going to lose kids, based off of that with no bylaws.”