Poll of the Week
August 26th, 2008 - byToday’s St. Petersburg Times details the popularity of transferring high schools in Florida for athletic purposes. Does this place to much of an emphasis on sport? Is it ethical?
Read some of the arguments and make your comments known!
“This will go on forever,” longtime Hillsborough coach Earl Garcia said. “In my opinion, absolutely there’s nothing different for a parent taking their kid to a performing arts magnet to play a musical instrument. If you’re the top student in engineering, you find an engineering magnet school.”
“Parents have become agents,” Middleton coach Harry Hubbard said. “They think if their kid’s not going to get a scholarship, they root up and go. Loyalty has gone out the door. Sometimes kids are listening to the wrong things from their parents and they end up transferring. My thing is if the kid can play, they’re going to find you.”
Hillsborough Countyathletic director Lanness Robinson said the county is gathering information on what other areas are doing to curtail transfers.
“It’s detrimental to high school sports,” Robinson said. “In the way that free agency has been to professional sports, high school sports have moved in the same direction. It deteriorates the concept of team.”
August 26th, 2008 at 9:54 am
i know a lot of people who would argue that free agency has been positive for sports, so why should these student athletes be prevented from pursuing a better future? I find that to be a foolish analogy.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I would only move in the most extreme of circumstances. Instead I would focus on attending camps, combines, etc to make sure my son or daughter got the recognition they deserved.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am
No matter the situation High school athletes should be able to transfer schools. There are very few potential negatives to the choice of switching schools. I think that issue at hand for the college coaches and the recruiting process is why they switched schools and how they did it. If it was done for a personal gain and handled in a professional manner then the college coaches will have few problems with it. Such is the case when a student athlete transfers cross town because they are a top athlete in their sport and that particular high school has produced a lot of college athletes. If it was handled unprofessionally and done for the wrong reasons then a college coach will simply make a note of this and adjust his recruiting accordingly. I dont know exactly how much the transfer of schools will help or hurt the student athlete but it should be a choice of theirs. I mean they already took the option of going straight to the NBA from high school, whats next?
August 26th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Obviously, attending a school with a prestigious program in your particular sport can be a great way to gain exposure, but it also might have drawbacks. For example, if you aren’t the cream-of-the-crop on the prestigious team, you might get overshadowed by the kid on the team who is creme-de-la-creme.
As far as playing purposes are concerned, I would much rather be the best player on an average team than just a good player on the excellent team. True, your team might not get as much attention, but that’s why we emphasize proactivity!