ASAA waiver rules need some revision
Published Thursday, September 4, 2008
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Stumble It!It’s too bad that the Alaska School Activities Association had to spend two days last week in Fairbanks Superior Court to show that its transfer waiver policies need revising.
Suzanne Coronel and her husband, Ted, filed for a preliminary injunction in early August against the state’s governing body for high school activities and athletics to allow their son, Alex Nelson, to play football in his senior year for Monroe Catholic. The couple had applied for a transfer waiver for him to transfer from West Valley to the private school.
ASAA’s policy for transfers has been that unless a student-athlete’s family changes physical addresses, a student-athlete can’t immediately compete in a sport for his new school. He has to sit out of competition for 90 school days, starting with the first day of a school district’s calendar for the year.
The first day of the school year in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District was Wednesday, Aug. 20. Ninety school days from then — taking into consideration holidays — would be on or around Jan. 12, 2009.
ASAA, a nonprofit organization, sanctions 13 sports. By January, the seasons of six of those sports — football, cross country, tennis, swimming, volleyball and wrestling — will have come and gone.
The Coronels cited concerns about their son’s safety when they applied with ASAA in late May for the transfer waiver for Nelson to switch to Monroe. Nelson, who had played football at West Valley for the previous three years, was involved in a group there that initially considered itself a pseudo gang and was formed as a joke.
Gary Matthews, ASAA executive director, denied the transfer waiver because it didn’t meet the organization’s hardship criteria for a transfer waiver, such as a student-athlete’s school being destroyed by fire or a natural catastrophe.
The Coronels filed an appeal but that was denied, too, by the ASAA Board of Directors. It led the family to file for a preliminary injunction on Aug. 8, allowing Nelson to play quarterback the next day for Monroe in a Greatland Conference game against Eielson at the Kiwanis Field.
Last Wednesday, the second and final day of an evidentiary hearing for the preliminary injunction, Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Robert Downes ruled that Nelson could continue to play for Monroe for the rest of the season. Downes, according to attorney William Satterberg, who represented Suzanne Coronel, the plaintiff in the case, made a number of factual and legal findings during the hearing that supported a notion that Nelson would suffer irreparable harm if he is not allowed to play.
Among Downes’ findings were that due process had been violated in the handling of the administrative process by ASAA and there were violations in equal protection in regards to the interpretation and enactment of the organization’s own rules.
One rule ASAA needs to change is the 90-day sit-out for transfer waivers.
Matthews cited school shopping and rampant recruiting as reasons for the 90-day policy.
The concerns are understandable because in the past, some student-athletes transferred willy-nilly from one school to another because they wanted to play in a particular sport for a particular school and a particular coach. In many cases, the moves were made to help attract attention from colleges for scholarships. The moves also raised concerns by some coaches that certain schools were becoming superpowers in particular sports.
(A college scholarship for their son wasn’t the Coronels’ intention when they filed for a preliminary injunction against ASAA. Nelson was recently accepted to Honolulu’s Chaminade University, which doesn’t play football. He said he’s going there to study international relations and he plans for a career in the military or national law enforcement, such as the FBI.)
Rather than its 90-day, no-play policy, the ASAA should take the length of each sport’s regular season into consideration for future transfer waiver policies.
High school football teams in Alaska, for example, typically play eight games each regular season. So, why not have a transfer waiver student-athlete sit out four football games rather than 90 days of a school calendar year?
If a student-athlete is serious about wanting to play football for his new school, he will wait through those four games.
In the end, the student-athlete gets to play his sport and no one has to go to court.
PRO NOTES: The three Alaskans in the National Football League this season are involved in nationally-televised season openers. North Pole grad Daryn Colledge (No. 73) enters his third NFL season as the starting left guard for the Green Bay Packers on Monday night against the Minnesota Vikings in Green Bay, Wis. (GCI Cable Channel 34 at 3 p.m.) Dimond alumnus and left guard Chris Kuper (No. 73) is No. 2 on the Denver Broncos’ depth chart for Monday night’s contest against the host Oakland Raiders (Cable Channel 34, 6:15 p.m.). Bartlett grad Zackary Bowman (No. 35) begins his first NFL season as the Chicago Bears’ No. 3 left cornerback in Sunday night’s road game against the Indianapolis Colts (KTVF Channel 11, 4:15 p.m.) ... Colony grad and Fairbanks-born forward Jessica Moore had three rebounds, two assists and two points for the host Los Angeles Sparks in an 82-58 rout of the Minnesota Lynx in Monday’s Women’s National Basketball Association game.
CAMPUS TRAILS: Senior linebacker Ward Dobbs, a West Valley graduate, recorded six tackles for Wyoming in Saturday’s 21-20 victory over Ohio in a season-opening college football game in Laramie, Wyo. ... In his first game, redshirt freshman safety and Eielson grad Nick Rogers had two tackles and two pass break-ups for Central Washington in a 44-38 overtime victory over Dixie State in Saturday’s Great Northwest Athletic Conference game in St. George, Utah. His brother, senior cornerback and fellow Eielson grad Jon Rogers had a pass break-up for Central ... Weber State junior wide receiver and Colony grad Justin Schwartzbauer grabbed a 13-yard touchdown pass in Thursday’s 62-6 season-opening rout of Western Montana in Ogden, Utah. ... Bemidji State (Minn.) junior running back and Kenai grad Brandon Miles scored on runs of 2 and 3 yards in Thursday’s 27-24 victory over Minot State in Minot, N.D. Junior cornerback and Lathrop grad Sid Johnson had a tackle for Bemidji State ... Valley City State senior safety Michael Weber from Palmer scored on a 37-yard interception return and tied Seward grad and sophomore linebacker Coty Beck with a team-high eight tackles in last Saturday’s 30-29 victory over Minnesota State-Moorhead in Valley City, N.D. Charles Spencer, a senior safety, and Cameron Culver, a junior linebacker, each had seven tackles for Valley City, which also got four from junior linebacker and fellow North Pole grad Marcus Grohman. Junior defensive end Robert Wilhelm of Anchorage had four tackles for Moorhead ... Nevada-Las Vegas wide receiver and East Anchorage grad Casey Flair opened his senior season with four catches for 53 yards in Saturday’s 27-17 win over visiting Utah State ... Senior defensive end Justin Rose, a Juneau-Douglas grad, made five tackles for Humboldt State (Calif.) in last Saturday’s 45-13 loss to Sacramento State in Sacramento, Calif.
• Senior goalkeeper and Lathrop grad Shanna Brown recorded three saves and shared in Hawaii-Hilo’s 4-0 shutout at California State Monterey Bay in Monday’s women’s soccer game. Brown transferred to Hilo of the NCAA Division II Pacific West Conference after spending the past three years with North Carolina-Asheville of the Division I Big South Conference.
• The Michigan volleyball team, coached by East Anchorage grad Mark Rosen, took the title in the Rice University Mizuno Invitational over the weekend in Houston, Texas, with sweeps of Louisiana-Lafayette, Texas-San Antonio and Rice ... West Valley grad and freshman outside hitter Rose Mattson led Southwestern Oregon Community College with a team-high eight kills along with six digs and two aces in a five-set loss to Lower Columbia College last Friday in Longview, Wash. Fellow West Valley grad and sophomore outside hitter Christie Wisel provided four kills, a dig and an ace and freshman middle blocker Amanda Hadley from Cordova contributed a kill.
Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586 or dmartin@newsminer.com.
Community Discussion
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I've always believed that schools (including activities) are there to help kids become the best people they can be. In any given situation the schools, and ASAA, should be asking the question: what is best for the kid involved?
rationale #1 from ASAA: Transfer rules are to prevent rampant school shopping.
Why? Isn't this a free country? Why shouldn't parents be allowed to get the best opportunity possible for their students? Good coaching is hard to find and worth the effort and inconvenience of transferring schools to get. Disrupting students' education isn't a good idea, so maybe these transfers should only be allowed at semester breaks. Why not suggest they must wait for these breaks to compete in activities?
What's best for kids is a competitive system where good coaching is rewarded and sought out. Kids should be allowed to go find the best coaching available for them if they are willing to go get it. And the schools should be looking for, recruiting, paying well, and supporting good coaches.
Rationale #2 from ASAA: Transfer rules are needed to prevent recruiting.
Question: why are we punishing kids for adult mistakes here? This makes no sense and is certainly not best for kids. When is the last time a coach was punished/sanctioned for recruiting? Try never. But, recruiting happens constantly, despite these rules. If ASAA doesn't want the adults recruiting kids, then ASAA should catch the adults that are recruiting and sanction them (fines and/or suspensions sound adequate). That's what would be best for kids. Using these rules to punish kids instead of the adults is wrong.
And then over and above all of this is the need for ASAA to be gracious and understanding in all cases with kids. It would be interesting to see deeper details in this case as to why Mr. Mathews denied the waiver in the first place and why the board upheld the decision (though my understanding is that the board always upholds his decisions....not a good system if you ask me). There's gotta be a lot more to this story than we know here....
I for one am glad that they've been taken to court and beaten on this one. I especially appreciate that they were defeated in this because they failed to follow their own rules (the tape recorder issue). Few things are worse for kids than for adults to be hypocrites and hold kids to rules that they themselves don't follow. Kids need us to be consistent in our application of rules and guidelines.
Just a few thoughts I had to get off my chest.
I will be cheering for Mr. Nelson this year and hoping he has a great senior season.
I have some first hand knowledge of the court preceedings and the prevailing opinion of legal minds who are familiar is that if ASAA would have shown some sort of professionalism or an iota of due process then they could have prevailed.
As it was Gary Matthews got on the stand and admitted that the ASAA transfer policy and policies governing the service area of Monroe (and presumably other private schools)were formulated, approved and implemented and enforced by him and him alone.
Mr. Nelson's appeal was indeed denied by the board of directors. In Mr. Matthews tenure of more than 15 years, not one of his decisions has reversed. We have to take his word for that since their meetings aren't recorded, in violation of bylaws, because Mr. Matthews can't find room for a recording device in his organization's $1.5 million budget.
It's important to have some context on this case and what facts went into the judgement before we start judging the outcome.
Regardless of opinions, this is a win-win situation. Monroe Catholic 'wins' - they have another fine athlete who will participate in not only football, but other sports and school activities as well, all of which ASAA governs. The athlete 'wins' because he not only is playing the sport he loves, he is away from a largely unruly issue at West Valley that I'm sure, in time, will be reigned in and controlled. And the parents 'win' because their kid is in a safe environment, surrounded by good people and benefiting from an outstanding education and extra-curricula program. ASAA loses nothing in this, except for a little 'face' because they can't seem to follow their own (albeit faulty) rules.
Gary Matthews has never been a friend of Fairbanks...and any way he can "stick it to us", he will. He is single-handedly responsible for a vast majority of State championships being held in Anchorage. Fairbanks has the same facilities as Anchorage in terms of size and quality...but Gary was the one who kept Fairbanks from getting state tournaments on a regular basis...changing the rules for RFP's a number of years back. This guy is a cancer for us...which is why he so immensely popular in Anchorage. Good for Fairbanks on this one. Maybe his armor is starting to crack...we can only hope.
there is much truth to oldakcuss's statement
how about those college football players from NorthPole playing for Valley City and beating a NAIA school Div II Morehead State.
good job Roger boys.
peace
Mr. Mathews has his faults (don't we all), but where state championships are located is not on him. Every region has the opportunity to bid on hosting state championships. It actually is bid on by individual schools I do believe. North Pole has hosted the state baseball championships in Fairbanks recently, West Valley Track and Field, and some body hosted Hockey not too long ago. I heard a rumor ASAA would love to put the state wrestling tourney back up here, but nobody here has bid on it. Football has to be in Anchorage for the sake of late October weather (who wants to play football in sub-zero temps in the snow in Fairbanks?). Basketball might be the only sport he's deliberately keeping in Anchorage, though I don't know that for a fact.....
If I really wanted to be a sourpuss I could go on for a long time about ASAA's faults, but instead I would simply like to advocate for what's best for our teens. I hope this whole experience gets ASAA to be as disciplined with itself as it is with the kids it serves. I also hope it leads to further refinement of transfer and eligibility guidelines so that the kids' best interests are served well.
teenadvocate is correct as far as state tourneys go
Hockey was here a couple of years ago, though Mike Hubbard decided he no longer wanted to do it and backed out of the (WV's) final year of the contract. The Valley schools gladly picked it up (and why not they had a brand new sports center) and then were successful in their bid the following year. State Chapionship venues are awarded multi year contracts, which I believe hockey is in its final year of.
Recent State Championship contest in Fairbanks... Softball, Baseball, Track and Field, Hockey.
If you want to see more State Tournaments in Fairbanks, call the local Athletic Directors and offer to volunteer. They need all of the support they can muster to pull one off
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