PREPNET / SPEAK OUT

Should a student be allowed to transfer to a different high school for athletic reasons? Why or why not?

JULIE ALLEN

Corona del Mar, Track and Field

There’s advantages and disadvantages. It enables individuals to work with a program that will best help them develop in their sport. On the downside, in a very competitive team sport such as football or basketball, it creates an imbalance between high school teams. The nice thing about [having to change residences to transfer] is everyone is living in that community and it feels more like a community team.

JEFF VEEDER

Capistrano Valley, Football Coach

Open enrollment and athletic-based transfers are ruining the spirit and sanctity of high school athletics. Overzealous parents who are not really aware of the recruiting process are willing to lie and give false information and phony addresses based on the false belief that their athlete will get recruited more at another school. Unfortunately, this problem is compounded by coaches who have absolutely no regard for CIF policies and openly recruit, with no repercussions from their own administrators, who feign ignorance.

DOUG CASE

Foothill, Football Coach

Education should be the reason for a transfer. CIF has opened a can of worms with open enrollment. Those schools not impacted, they can take transfers. But a school like us, we can’t take any transfers. Sports are a big thing and, financially, they can make a big impact. But where does it end?

MARY ELLEN TIEDGE

El Toro, Parent

My son, a senior at El Toro, played on a varsity soccer team last year with 11 seniors, limiting his playing time. This year, he was one of five seniors, on a weak team, which made little impact in the tough South Coast League . Had he been on a strong, winning team, such as Dana Hills, Capistrano Valley or Santa Margarita, he would have had more exposure to college coaches and scouts.

DOUG EUPER

Bolsa Grande, Baseball Coach

The primary thing should be a student’s education. Staying at one school teaches them the value of hard work, sticking things out and trying to make things work. Things aren’t always going to go your way. The biggest problem we have in our league is that it’s so easy to get an athletic transfer. The instant you try to discipline a player in your program, they’re gone. If they don’t like their coach, they leave. If they don’t like their playing time, they leave. Their parents are just as responsible.

DAN MacLEITH

Garden Grove, Parent

When schools set out to build the best team and do so by robbing others of their best players, they will have the best team and no competition by which to test it. Lessons learned by losing, and there are many, will be lost. How much will these athletically talented kids gain by winning every game? A real sense of the life that awaits them after high school?

NEXT QUESTION

Should high schools hold athletes to stricter conduct codes than they do other students?