Each week, five high school coaches will discuss one issue that affects Georgia high school sports. | Last week: Coaching pressures
At Issue: The Georgia High School Association has introduced several rules in an effort to slow the transfer trend in high school sports, but one fact remains: If parents and players want to make bona fide moves into a district to play for successful coaches and programs, there's little from a legal standpoint that can be done. And parents and players continue to move. It's the classic scenario of the rich getting richer, top players leaving lesser programs and creating an uneven playing field in high school sports.
With that in mind, is there anything that can be done to slow the transfer process?
The Skinny: Walton head football coach Daniel Brunner has been leading the Raiders for four seasons since taking over for coach Mo Dixon in 2017. In his first season at Walton, Brunner coached the Raiders to a 10-0 regular season before losing to Colquitt County in the second round of the state playoffs.
Last season, Walton finished 6-6 and lost to North Gwinnett in the second round of the playoffs. Inevitably, as the coach of an Atlanta-area program in the state’s highest classification, Brunner has dealt with his fair share of transfer issues. But in Atlanta, the issue just seems, well, bigger and louder.
“We’ve had it in our place,” he said of parents moving to transfer their kids into the Walton school district for whatever reason. “You’re talking half-million dollar homes and moves into another half-million dollar home just so the kids come to Walton.”
But the transfer students are not always athletically motivated.
“We see it through a lot of different things,” Brunner said. “Whether its sports, academics or arts. Walton is rated as one of the top academic schools in the state, and the SAT scores are up there and everything. So we have kids trying to come in for all sorts of reasons.”
The goal for Brunner and Walton, regarding athletic transfers, is to make sure everything is done by the book.
Brunner: "For football, and I guess where I'm involved, as long as people are doing things on the up-and-up, there's no undue influence going on. I think it's our job as coaches now to build a brand that people want to be a part of, as part of high school football. With our eighth-grade team, I got to watch these kids the last three years play middle-school football and then they won a championship this year. That was really cool to see. I'm sure some of those kids will be gone by the time they get to varsity. And we will have some kids that will move in by that time.
“But I think our job as a coach is to basically build something that people want to be a part of. If coaches are doing the right thing and doing it the right way, you're going to get kids that want to come be a part of what you're doing. We just got a brand-new facility, a 4,600 square-foot weight room that's out of this world. They're redoing our field, and our field house has been redone. So we have a lot of cool things going here. We have a Nike contract here, so people are doing things to try to attract kids, and whether they move over during middle school or high school, it’s just the nature of where things are.
“I think the toughest challenge, to be quite honest with you, is if they wanted to hammer down the people doing things illegally, I just don't know how you do it. I don't know who you punish. Do you punish the kids? Do you punish the schools? I think there have been coaches who have gotten away with certain things and unfortunately kids face repercussions that maybe the coach should have faced. But it’s just a hard, hard thing to handle. I think as soon as you hammer down on a kid — we live in a litigious society — people are going to want to start suing. I just think the GHSA is in a tough spot trying to sort out how to handle this the best way to keep everything on an even playing ground.
“You got it an even worse in places like Florida, where you can just up and go wherever you want to go. There are kids who have played a football season in certain schools in AAAAAAA — you print that and people know exactly what I’m talking about — and then they leave and go play their baseball season at another school. That's kind of absurd. But in Florida, that happens more and more because they kind of threw their hands up like, ‘If you can provide transportation, you can go wherever you want to go, whatever, just figure it out.’ That’s what it seems like in Florida, so we don’t face that at least.
“I think it’s a tough challenge. A couple years ago, we had a bunch of kids come over from one of our local schools. They had a coaching change and they hadn’t won many games. Parents were frustrated. And we had a lot of kids that moved into our school, and I made them all sign contracts saying that we are doing everything properly. And this is once they were registered in our school.
“I get calls all the time about this or that kid wants to come play here. It’s so hard to get over to Walton’s district, and they’d have to buy a house or move into a house and it's so expensive. It’s just ... it’s really, really tough. So people are really making a commitment to do that. And I always tell them this: ‘Look, if you’re interested in coming to Walton, you need to contact the athletic director and he’ll set up an appointment. I can come in there and meet with you and talk to you. But I can’t bring you over (to my office) and talk to you about football until you’re enrolled in school.’ And if they want to go that route, they’ve got to have an address, and it’s got to be a bona fide move.
“I gave the example of (signing contracts) because I worried about that. I’ve called some people, who I value their opinion, and some coaches have been doing this a lot longer than me, and I just asked, “This what I’m thinking about doing; what do you think?” I had them all sign a document, essentially saying that they made a bona fide move. That there was no undue influence. That they are living where they say they are living and we’re going to continue to follow these guidelines through the whole time we’re with the Walton football program.
“I don't know that it meant a whole hill of beans if one of them was doing something wrong. But what I wanted to be able to do is put my head on my pillow at night knowing I’m doing things the right way. And if anybody ever comes at me saying, ‘How did this kid get here?’ I can go back and say, ‘Look, this parent has told me this, this and this and if they’re lying, that's on the parent.’ But I want you to know that we documented. We will do home checks, too, to be safe. My athletic director will go cruise by their house and make sure they're there once they’ve moved into our school district. Just because I fear it. I’ll be quite honest with you, I've probably feared it more than most.
“It may have been because when I first got to Walton, I was an assistant coach in the first year that Mo Dixon was there. It was really no fault of his, and I think it was paperwork issues and stuff like that, but we end up having to forfeit three or four games at the beginning of the season because we had played in an ineligible kid. And ultimately, that comes to the head coach and the AD, and I just don’t want that ever to be me.
“I’m always trying to cover my butt as far as making sure we are doing things the right way. I know there are places that don’t do it that way and other places will have people out there that are trying to influence the kids to come and do this and that. Like I said, I think that is unfortunate, but it’s the nature of where we are at. It is what it is at this point.”
AT ISSUE: High school transfers
• Robin Hines, GHSA executive director
• Brandon Lindsey, Johnson-Savannah girls basketball coach
• Jason Carrera, Meadowcreek football coach
• Daniel Brunner, Walton football coach
• Davis Russell, Bremen football coach
» MORE: Previous topics
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