Transfer sidelines top football player
Appeal launched over star Adam Scott Collegiate player being blocked from playing football, rugby after transferring to TASSS integrated arts program
One of the city’s top junior football players has been declared ineligible to play high school football and his mother says she can’t get an answer why.
Mack McFarlane was the Adam Scott Collegiate junior male athlete of the year as a Grade 9 student in 2016-17. He was a standout in football and rugby and helped lead the Peterborough Wolverines junior varsity team to its first Ontario Football Conference championship in August.
In July, McFarlane transferred to Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School’s integrated arts program. According to TASSS principal Jeff Stewart the family was cautioned he might have to sit out a year of football and rugby.
McFarlane was given a form to fill out and submit to the Kawartha District Athletic Association’s transfer committee. OFSAA rules dictate a transferring student must meet specific guidelines to be able to participate in the sports he competed in the previous year. Reasons allowed include moving to the new school’s geographic boundary or exceptional academic, social or personal reasons. Supporting documents are required to prove exceptional exemptions.
Kawartha District denied the transfer and the Central Ontario Secondary School Athletics (COSSA) transfer appeals committee upheld the denial. An appeal has now been filed to OFSSA to be heard Oct. 5.
On Friday, McFarlane, who is allowed to practice, had to watch his team’s first game from the stands.
“It was pretty painful because I’ve played football since Grade 3 and I’ve never missed a game,” McFarlane said. “I just had to sit there and watch.”
Jenn Sicard, McFarlane’s mother, says she can’t get answers as to why Kawartha and COSSA came to their decisions. She got a copy of the two decisions only after requesting them but neither gave many specifics. The Kawartha response cited a lack of supporting documents to prove OFSAA transfer rule D(i). That’s the section McFarlane applied under for “exceptional academic, social or personal” reasons.
Sicard says two other Adam Scott athletes transferred to TASSS this year and were permitted to play sports. She wants to know why her son is being treated differently. She is concerned the former school is trying to block her son from playing because of his ability.
She says talk in the community is Adam Scott thinks TASSS recruited McFarlane, which she, her son and TASSS coach Jeff Challice deny. One TASSS coach, who formerly coached at Adam Scott, coaches Wolverines football but not McFarlane’s team.
Sicard said McFarlane wanted to go to TASSS to take integrated arts like his two sisters and older brother. She acknowledges her son did not take arts at Adam Scott but intended to in Grade 10. She believed the fact integrated arts is not available at Adam Scott was an exceptional reason to permit his transfer.
She said most of her son’s friends go to TASSS. Sicard said she intended to enroll him at TASSS for Grade 9 but the mother of eight said She was enduring some personal problems which prevented her from enrolling him in time.
“He’s always wanted to go to TASSS,” she said.
“He’s where he wants to be. He’s willing to sit out the season because the transfer was for education and because he wants to be there socially with his friends. It’s not to play football.”
When denied by Kawartha, Sicard said she was told a letter from the former school supporting his transfer could help his appeal. She said Adam Scott administration would not provide such a letter.
Adam Scott vice-principal Mike Burke said he has written emails to support student transfers when there were mitigating circumstances which made a student’s change of scenery advisable. Burke said McFarlane was a model student so there were no exceptional circumstances to warrant his move other than his personal choice. Nor did he write letters for the two other students who transferred to TASSS, Burke said.
Adam Scott’s football coaches are not consulted during the transfer process, he said, so there is no one from his school preventing McFarlane from playing.
“The last thing I would want to do is keep a good athlete from playing sports,” Burke said.
Challice said the rules do give some leeway for a student entering Grade 10 to be allowed to switch schools if he feels he made a mistake in his initial choice of schools.
“The boy decided to change schools and if he wants to participate in sports, it would be a shame for him to not participate in sports he loves,” Challice said.
Brian Poste, chairman of the COSSA transfer committee, said privacy laws prevent him from giving specifics about the McFarlane decision other than acknowledgement of their decision and the section under which he applied.
Poste said a former school does not have input into the transfer process unless it wanted to appeal the granting of a transfer. In this case, the transfer was denied so no input came from Adam Scott.
Poste said OFSAA sets the rules and it is his committee’s role to interpret and enforce them. He said the majority of transfers are permitted but each case is specific to its own facts.
“The transfer committee has this bad wrap that we want to keep kids from playing,” Poste said.
“No. I want to see every kid play. I’ve been involved in transfer in one way or another for the last 20 years. I want to see kids play but we have to make sure they follow the rules otherwise OFSAA doesn’t sanction us. The last thing we want is to have a team go to an OFSAA championship and then find out the transfer process wasn’t done properly and then you lose a medal because you used an ineligible player.”
In this case, Poste said, the appeals committee consisted of two teachers from Quinte Region and a third from Fenelon Falls. None with a vested interested in how the outcome affected TASSS or Adam Scott.
Because the word “exceptional” is not defined by OFSAA there is some judgment call required by the committee. “My committee didn’t feel the academic reasons given would be considered exceptional,” Poste said.
He said the fact a student switches schools to take a course not available at the other is no longer sufficient reason to approve an athletic transfer.
“That was Section E which used to be part of the transfer policy,” Poste said.
It was so open to abuse OFSAA removed it four years ago, he said.
“It got abused and people started playing games,” he said.
The underlying reason for the rules, said Poste, is to prevent coaches and students from stacking teams.
“The goal of OFSAA is to create a level playing field for all students involved,” Poste said.