With several recent transfers, club mergers and increasingly connected club and high school programs, I’m interested in hearing from people who understand how CIF eligibility rules actually work.
Are there any rule changes for this school year involving transfers, recruitment or eligibility? When a transfer follows disciplinary action at the previous school, what information is the receiving school expected to verify, and who ultimately determines whether the athlete is eligible?
I’m also curious how CIF views situations where club programs, high school programs and coaching staffs overlap, especially following recent club mergers. Where is the line between normal club participation, families exploring opportunities and improper recruitment?
This is intended as a general discussion about the rules and how consistently they are enforced, not an accusation against any particular athlete or program. I’d especially appreciate insight from coaches, administrators or families who have gone through the CIF transfer process.
The premise of your questions would seem to assume a desire for fairness, equitable application of CIF Bylaws, and schools admins and ADs who are paying close attention to a niche sport that many casual observers dont understand or follow until late round playoff games, if at all.
So oversight and advisory capacity is left to a handful of high school coaches, some with questionable motives, and many with a vested interest in keeping this a sport of the elites…and everyone else.
With that in mind. I direct you to the CIFSS Water Polo Advisory Board. Notice any familiar names from the Club world? Moreover the closed club world? The USAWP ODP world?
I didn’t look at other sections but assume it’s all the same.
Long way of saying that the fix is in…outcomes of the topics you raise are decided long before the game is played.
(Of course there are exceptions where fairness wins out…like a glaring one from last HS season where an elite athlete’s transfer would have added to existing scandals at a school, so it quietly went away…but we dont talk about those here on the ol Exchange)
Can I ask why it is not talked about here? Is it because there are ties to those programs? A healthy discussion is beneficial especially when it makes the news again as it did today and it affects everyone to have oversight and consequences (or lack thereof). Spotlights of the public is always how these things eventually change (slowly).
I don’t know. I do think it’s a bad idea when it’s a bunch of minors. However, now they’re all now adults I do agree with you. The moderators on here disagree though. I already have been flagged before for making comments on here even without naming or villainizing any athlete. To be fair, if they outline prior what you can and can’t talk about (which they did to their credit) then you can’t really complain. You can always chat privately with anyone on the board or anyone you know in the water polo community. The community is so small that when controversial things related to the sport come up everyone is in the loop.
With the trend in the NCAA, I’m surprised we haven’t seen a HS athlete take the CIF to court (football for example). One could argue a HS career is tied to an athlete’s ability to make money from his/her name, image, and likeness. One could argue playing at the right HS has an effect on an athlete’s future earning potential. Using the current NCAA trend/philosophy, why shouldn’t a HS athlete play at whichever HS he/she wants without penalty? I don’t think CIF eligibility rule enforcement is going to increase, I think it’s one court case away from eventually no longer being a thing.
Privates already have dorm complexes, the wealthy can afford a house or condo in a desired district or near their private school of choice.
What’s to prevent a school from buying or renting an athlete house and packing kids in there while they pursue championships.
I agree CIF is not going to be able to prevent a free for all (at least at the highest levels of the various sports) much longer and is just one lawsuit away.
Surely there is an opposing argument where a kid lives in an area that the local high school no longer fields a waterpolo team (primarily due to the failure of USA Warerpolo to properly address declining participation) and a transfer is her only option to play the sport she loves. Or maybe it isn’t quite that bad and a Div 5 level team will never allow her to demonstrate her ability or properly develop. Her parents aren’t the elites you speak of. Why shouldn’t she or an interested private school be allowed to provide that opportunity?
I get the infighting amongst us beach elites for scraps of talent, but I am sure there are a few kids out in the desert that probably want to have a shot. Your message to her is pound dry desert sand and resent the beach elites that locked you out?
I have not problem with kids leaving public schools to play for a private. Privates like Oaks, HW and others have great coaching and great facilities. What I have a problem with is when coaches and admin lie about undue influence. I have many examples over the years, where coaches and/or admin lie to get around (cheat) the rules. One example I think is fair to share on this forum. Logan McCarroll, an adult now had to sit out his junior year (could have been sophomore) when he transferred to Mater Dei. He had played club for Vanguard and the Vanguard coach was the Mater Dei coach at that time. The rules were clear, he most likely knew in advance he would sit games for one season, but those are the rules. He was fine! Played a great career at Princeton! This is how it is supposed to work. I know of a girl last year who left one public to go to another one. The one she ended up at was coached by her club coach. All she had to do was sit out 30 days, they clearly lied about his influence, and that he had coached her before. CIF is to ask those questions of every water polo transfer. So someone had to lie, this happens all the time, CIF just does not have the bandwidth to enforce its own rules. Some get caught right at the playoffs, Burbank comes to mind, but never Newport Harbor?
I’m as pro public school as it gets but I strongly believe everyone should get one transfer no sit out period. After that you sit out a season if you transfer and stay in the section.
I’d also push to allow each high school sport to choose their own dead time. Currently the school sets it for the entire athletic department. Yes coaching Quals is exempt but the practice up to it isn’t.
I’d put more resources to monitoring under influence between coaches, clubs, and players when it comes to transfers.
I agree, or at least transferring from a private back to the home district of public school should be exempt from the sit out - the player shouldn’t be punished for returning to his or her local high school
And you have to add in the shadow world of a family making a tough decision that they have to go all in on transferring with the sticky connection of also having previously played for a club where a 12u or 14u B team coach that their kid did not even play for moved to a high school a year before which then gives some “anonymous” letter writers the opportunity to claim the transfer was athletically motivated. I’ve seen it happen twice, and the families in both instances had to disprove the narrative while their athlete was not allowed to compete. CIF follows the reverse concept of you are banned for the season unless your parents hire an attorney who can scare us to actually look at the circumstances. It is wild in light of some of the things that take place out in the open that should get much more attention.
I am not privy to all the info, but we had an 8th grader (now a freshman this year) who wanted to transfer because their high school didn’t offer water polo. The home district denied the request but approved an intradistrict transfer as the other high school did offer water polo.
Parents ended up moving over the summer out of that district. What’s funny is the two high schools in question, the one they wanted to transfer to and the one the district allowed them to transfer to were roughly the same distance from where they lived.
Districts don’t like to approve kids leaving the district, because every kid that leaves is county or state funding leaving with that kid. That’s why intra districts are usually no problem, and since transfers are not supposed to be athletically motivated, you can’t go to your home district and asked to be released, because you want to play a sport at a different district..
As somebody mentioned above. One year sit out is very harsh for most situations. That’s 25% of your HS career.
What if somebody goes off to private school and then parents figure out they just can’t afford it or a parent looses their job, and the kid needs to come back to their home school. Should there be a sti out period for that?
This list is very interesting. Lots of names with possible conflict of interest situations here. Is somebody on here really going to clamp down on a shady transfer into their own, or their buddies school?The old, “hey, I scratch your back on this one but you owe me one later”, would not surprise anybody.
CIF does not have the resources to check every single transfer at all the sports and all the schools, so they rely on coaches and parents, pointing out certain transfers they feel are kinda shady. At that point I’m not sure when this advisory commitee gets involved. Maybe they are not even involved in these type of decisions.
But you need some sort of committee and these people are most likely ‘working’ for free, so where else are you going to get waterpolo adults to form a committee other than getting waterpolo coaches?
I used that as an example because I believe CIF still allows a transfer with only the SOP if it occurs before the start of their 10th grade year, barring athletic motivation (not 100% sure on that last part).
I guess my question, again I’m ignorant of CIF rules here, but if they transfer prior to 9th grade, regardless of athletically motivated or not, CIF can not make they do the full year or 30 day correct?
Would that be something worth looking at or since they haven’t started HS, let them transfer where they want?
If you believe that the CIF Advisory Committee carries any weight, you are mistaken. They do not set policy, they have no involvement in eligibility, transfers or in any other meaningful capacity. The committee is window dressing and cover for CIF to say they listen to their athletic members. The committee couldn’t even get CIF to agree to open up all of the seating at Mt. SAC for the CIF Championships.
Correct, if you have not started HS, not attended any HS online classes and have not practiced with the any HS team during summer, you can leave a district, (if they release you) and enroll at another district that is open (Irvine is not, as an example) and you will not sit out any period of time, as long as that high school coach, was not your coach in 14U Club. If that HS coach was your coach in 14U for example, then you would be ‘following your coach’ and that’s not allowed.
However, if you are going to have to sit out, might as well be during 9th grade, where you could play JV that year.
I was always curious about this and appreciate that tidbit. Always assumed that would be considered “tampering” or whatever they want to call it. Good to know going forward.
