Orville Higgins | ISSA's new transfer rule raises questions

We should have seen it coming. The Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association's (ISSA) hard-nosed resistance to changing the stifling 45 per cent rule should have been enough to show us that the body was not prepared to allow for the free-for-all participation in sports by our high school students.

The new proposals that seek to pose severe restrictions on students, who have already represented one school, playing for another school, is another attempt by ISSA to monitor the high school student's ability to be involved in sports.

On this one I do have some sympathies for ISSA.

If you look across the high school sports landscape, what you find is a set of dynasties. If you look at the three major sports - cricket football, and track and field - it's easy to see that the same schools are always prominent.

Recruiting plays a key role in the success of these top schools and ISSA clearly feels that it is their duty to level the playing field and make these competitions more open. They feel that by allowing wholesale recruiting, there is a built-in and unfair advantage to the schools with money and resources. In principle, I can understand why ISSA feels they have to do something.

Potentially problematic

The proposal of the transfer restrictions does create problems, though, and I have a litany of issues with it. For one, the restrictions fly in the face of what should be the decision of a student and his parents to attend and represent whichever school he likes.

Secondly, there are times when a student-athlete may have to move from one school to the next for family reasons and not necessarily for reasons of sports. His parents may have moved from Kingston to Montego Bay because of work, which makes it necessary for him to switch schools. In such cases, that shouldn't be seen as a sports transfer. How will ISSA deal with that?

I can understand ISSA protecting the integrity of a competition by not allowing wholesale recruiting. Many of us who watch high school sports at times wish that the winners were not almost predetermined. Deep down, we can empathise with schools that lose their athletes to more established institutions, but which is more important, the integrity of a competition or the rights of a student?

ISSA sits on the horns of a dilemma. It's a case of damned if they do and damned if they don't. As the governing body for high school sports, they have a duty to make competitions fairer to all concerned, but restrictions may not be the way to go. I don't like the restriction rule. It seems again to be picking on the student-athlete to make his life harder. There must be another solution.