High school transfer portal brings changes

The transfer portal has made its way to high school sports, and it could have players shuffling between rosters all over the Lowcountry.

Students moving between schools is nothing new, but the biggest remaining guardrails are off for the first time this summer because of the S.C. High School League’s new one-time free transfer rule, which allows players to pop between programs regardless of their home address.

Attendance zones have always been irrelevant when transferring to schools competing in the S.C. Independent Schools Association (SCISA), but moving between public schools was tricky under SCHSL’s previous rule, which required a “bona fide address change” to reside within the school’s defined attendance zone.

The rule was designed to keep kids at their zoned schools, but when circumstances dictate a change for whatever reason, parents of student-athletes are motivated to make sure their kids can play, and those with the means to do so were able to find loopholes.
It’s an open secret that many schools have boosters who can provide an address for a rental property where a student-athlete’s family may or may not actually reside. Others have tried to cheat the system — but gotten sloppy — and the kids have paid the price by being banned from postseason play.

As the waters have muddied surrounding what is and isn’t allowable — complicated by the flood of charter schools that aren’t bound by attendance zones — it has become increasingly difficult for SCHSL to split hairs and dole out sanctions for eligibility infractions without inciting controversy and claims of favoritism. All the precedents have been mashed to a pulp.

Enter the one-time free transfer rule. Everybody gets one freebie to cash in for a fresh start, even if they’re not in a position to move; and the SCHSL takes a whole bunch of anxious hearings off its docket.

In that sense, the new rule makes sense, and it frees families to flee bad situations where their kids haven’t been able to flourish and provides opportunities for families from failing districts.

We’ve already seen a couple of high-profile moves in the Lowcountry this summer, with Jayvin Risher transferring from Hampton County to Hilton Head High and Amare Patterson announcing he’s bouncing from Beaufort High to Bluffton, but we won’t know how big the initial wave is until August.

In fact, SCHSL’s original proposal indicated the rule was, “designed to discourage transfers for athletic reasons, multiple transfers, and transfers after a sports season has begun, by imposing short but predictable periods of ineligibility for those transfers while providing one penalty-free transfer under certain conditions.”

The transfer rule includes a couple of stipulations aimed at preventing transfers en masse. On the front end, students must be enrolled at their new school on or before the first practice date of the sports season in which the transfer occurs. Students who transfer after that date will be ineligible for 30 days or half the team’s season, whichever is shorter.

And if you’re going to chase greener grass, you better get it right, because if a student transfers a second time, they will be subject to the same period of ineligibility and may be deemed ineligible for the postseason.

SCHSL Commissioner Jerome Singleton was adamant during an interview following the 29-4 passage of the transfer rule in March that the new rule does not allow for recruiting — another Pandora’s box that has proven impossible to legislate effectively and equitably — and while it might not allow for it, it certainly invites everyone from kids, parents, and coaches to try to exploit it.

It’s not quite the Wild West scenario that the NCAA has become, with rampant free agency complete with “NIL” deals that are akin to pro contracts (without the pesky collective bargaining element that provides limitations and protections for both sides), but it has some real danger of becoming unmanageable.

Justin Jarrett is the sports editor of The Island News and is the founder of Lowco Sports. He has a passion for sports and community journalism and a questionable sense of humor.