AIA transfer rule not changing this fall

Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Director David Hines, during Thursday’s in-house video Q&A, said that the transfer rule will remain the same during the coronavirus pandemic when sports begin playing this school year.

It has always been that athletes had to sit out half of the season in the firsttime transfer, the whole season if it is a second transfer move. Athletes can still apply for hardship in efforts not to lose any eligibility. They would have to prove that the transfer was unavoidable and unforeseen to win hardship cases.

Some might feel that the transfer rule should be eliminated this school year because of the unforeseen damage that COVID-19 did on high school sports, wiping out the last two-thirds of the spring sports seasons and causing some schools to cancel fall sports in Arizona this year.

According to the AIA 50-percent transfer rule, if the football season is reduced to eight games, then the transferred player would have to sit out the first four games. If volleyball is condensed to 14 games, then she would have to sit out seven games. “Our rule is clear,” Hines said. “It states you would miss 50 percent of the scheduled contests that are power-rated.”

Some states are starting football in the fall, while others are moving to the winter and spring.

Hines was asked about how athletes will be ruled on eligibility if he or she plays a sport offered in the fall at another state and returns to Arizona in the spring to play the same sport that would only be offered then.

“If a student goes out of state in the fall and comes back later in the year, next year (2021), that is a transfer,” Hines said. “You can only play that sport once in a school calendar year.”

The AIA plan is still to conduct a fall football season, although Hines indicated in the AIA video that it could be the last fall sport phased in with swimming, golf and cross country starting first, volleyball and badminton second and football third.

He gave Aug. 17 as a target date for schools to begin fall football practice, because that was in the governor’s latest executive order for when schools are allowed to have on-sight learning.

It’s becoming apparent that the AIA will be modifying the football fall start with Phoenix Brophy Prep announcing it won’t be out of Phase 1 (limited to under 10 players, no equipment) until at least Sept. 8, and that the Tucson Unified School District will follow the Pima County Health Department’s recommendation to not start fall sports until there is on-site, in-person school.

On Friday, the Paradise Valley Unified School District’s governing board is holding a meeting to “discuss, consider and approve an option for participation in 2020-2021 Fall Athletics,” district spokeswoman Michele Anderson said.

The PV district includes Phoenix Pinnacle, Phoenix Shadow Mountain, Phoenix Horizon, Phoenix North Canyon and Paradise Valley.