Non-Transferable : Football: Three Oxnard players stuck in bureaucratic limbo after coming from Rio Mesa in the middle of last season.

For three boys from Oxnard who played on an unbeaten youth team and an unbeaten Rio Mesa High freshman team, rules and regulations were no more an obstacle than opponents on the football field.

They attended Rio Mesa although their parents lived in the Oxnard attendance area. They say Rio Mesa coaches knew and gladly went along.

When their fortunes changed last season as sophomores--the junior varsity was losing and the varsity coach was losing patience--the trio bolted to Oxnard High, transferring on the same day in October.

No problem, they and their parents believed. Rules had not stopped them before. Wasn’t there something called open enrollment? Wasn’t Oxnard their home school to begin with?

Yes and yes. But none of that applied. Rules were rules, they were told, and the Southern Section ruled that the players are ineligible for varsity athletics until Oct. 24--one full year after transferring.

The incident caused hard feelings between Rio Mesa and Oxnard highs, prompted an investigation by the Oxnard Union High School District superintendent and resulted in a new district policy designed to punish students who falsify their addresses.

But most of all, the ordeal of Donald Arguelles, Courtney Palmore and Mark Valdivia serves as a graphic lesson to any player casting an eye toward a school outside his attendance boundary: Know the rules and abide by them.

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Arguelles, Palmore and Valdivia tossed a football around outside while their parents sat at a living room table littered with paperwork earlier this week.

Arguelles’ hardship appeal to the Southern Section, stamped denied, sat on top of a pile that included letters from Rio Mesa and Oxnard administrators to the section and recruiting letters from UCLA and Washington addressed to their sons.

“There is a double standard here,” said Virginia Arguelles, Donald’s mother. “It’s OK to bend the rules to get into Rio Mesa, but when you try to leave, it’s not OK.”

Actually, it wasn’t OK to get into Rio Mesa, but it was easy. The players simply gave addresses of relatives who lived in the Rio Mesa attendance area. They weren’t the only ones to do it; nearly the entire nucleus of the unbeaten eighth-grade Channel Islands Warriors youth team somehow found a way to start high school at Rio Mesa.

“That’s just the way the flow went,” Donald Arguelles said.

Rio Mesa coaches and administrators contend they were unaware of the scheme.

“I knew none of it,” said George Contreras, the Rio Mesa varsity coach. “If you asked me who won the Pop Warner Super Bowl, I wouldn’t have a clue. We just thought a good class was coming in.

“In retrospect, though, [falsifying addresses] probably did happen.”

The parents point out that Rio Mesa assistant coaches occasionally gave rides home to all three players, homes that were in the Oxnard attendance area.

“The coaches knew exactly where the kids lived,” Virginia Arguelles said.

Had the players simply stayed at Rio Mesa, residence probably would never have become an issue. Had the players waited until the end of the school year and transferred under open enrollment, they would not have lost eligibility.

But by transferring seven games into a disappointing season, by “jumping ship,” as Rio Mesa Athletic Director Brian FitzGerald put it, they raised the ire of Rio Mesa administrators and caught the attention of Southern Section Commissioner Dean Crowley.

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Crowley ruled that because the players’ families did not move at the time they transferred, the players would lose one year of eligibility. A simple case, really, open and shut. Arguelles’ appeal was denied on the same grounds.

“Some rash decisions were made by parents who didn’t understand the ramifications,” FitzGerald said. “They got some bad advice, I think, and they didn’t know the rules.”

Charges of undue influence were made by FitzGerald against an Oxnard assistant who knew the three players from youth football. An investigation by district superintendent Bill Studt cleared the Oxnard assistant, but relations between administrators at Oxnard and Rio Mesa were strained.

“I had to do some refereeing between the schools,” Studt said.

Oxnard coaches contend they have lost players to Rio Mesa for years. “Because this kind of thing had gone on so long, it was known Oxnard wouldn’t cry foul,” said Wes Morimune, Oxnard’s coach.

The parents of the three players claimed that difficulties transporting their sons to school each day forced the transfers.

Contreras, the Rio Mesa varsity coach, humiliated Palmore at one practice, accusing the defensive back of not putting forth enough effort. Meanwhile, Oxnard, with a shiny new campus and an improving football program, began looking better and better.

Within days of the transfers, the trio suited up for the Oxnard sophomore team and helped the Yellowjackets defeat Buena for the Channel League championship.

It was a last hurrah.

The players are practicing with the Oxnard varsity, but doing so halfheartedly. They cannot play until the season’s eighth week and will miss by one week Oxnard’s game against Rio Mesa.

“It’s tough to work hard knowing there is no reward,” said Donald Arguelles, a linebacker who has received recruiting letters from UCLA. “We’re all second string because we are ineligible. I see guys ahead of me I know I can beat out.”

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Studt instituted a new district policy in the wake of his investigation: Any player found to have falsified an address will be ineligible for a full year.

The Southern Section rule takes away one year of eligibility for a player who transfers without changing residence, but it does not punish players who falsify their address at the time they enroll at school.

Beginning this fall, that will no longer be tolerated in the Oxnard district, which includes Camarillo, Channel Islands and Hueneme highs in addition to Oxnard and Rio Mesa.

“I look at this incident as positive because it brought some things to light that need to be clarified throughout the district,” Studt said. “We need to control this type of thing.

“This district tries to facilitate transfers for academic and hardship reasons. But wholesale movement for athletic reasons, picking schools based on winning records, that is inappropriate.”

FitzGerald said Rio Mesa traditionally has gained students from the Oxnard High attendance area, but has lost students to Camarillo High who live in the Rio Mesa attendance area.

“I’m going to talk to every team on campus about falsifying addresses and what the new policy spells out,” he said. “So much manipulation goes on, people need to know the rules.”

And the rules need to be enforced in a consistent and uniform manner. Three players who violated one rule without consequence are being punished for breaking another rule.

Confusion and outrage has dissolved into reluctant resignation, however.

“We’re tired, we’re drained,” Virginia Arguelles said. “The kids just want to play.”

In late October, they will play, presumably by the rules.