When a student transfers to another school before the beginning of the next school year, students should be granted with eligibility or at least have a chance to apply for the opportunity. Students that were here once the school year started still have to miss a significant amount of their varsity games. Smoky Hill’s Basketball team brought three transfers this year who were expected to make a significant impact on the team’s overall success.

In April of 2002, the Colorado High School Activities Association Board of Control came up with  a more restrictive transfer rule that was approved for use with our member schools. In order to implement this revised rule, it was necessary for the state legislature to remove a statute that gave eligibility to students who moved during the summer.

“A student who transfers to another school following the close of school for the summer and before the beginning of the school year, will be ineligible for varsity competition in the first 50% of the maximum regular season contests”, CHSAA said.  The student may practice with the team and participate in an interscholastic contest at the sub varsity level during this time.

Sophomore Kyle Cabs, Jahwan Phillips, and John Harge missed the first eleven games of this season. Having multiple players miss the first half of the regular season can impact a basketball team significantly.   Having these players off the court makes the coaches have to adjust to many different situations to try and make their team perform at a high level.

“Not having Kyle, Jahwan, and John for the first eleven games of the season was tough”, Junior Kyle Colen said. All we could do was adjust and try to go out and win basketball games.
Having these three miss the first eleven games had an impact on Smoky Basketball’s overall performance this season. CHSAA should grant any students who transferred to a different school, with an opportunity to apply for eligibility before the start of their sports season.