Tennessee lawmaker slams new TSSAA one-time transfer proposal, calling it ‘tone deaf'
A recent TSSAA proposal to amend its bylaws is not easing pressure from Tennessee state legislators who want to change the Tennessee high school sports governing body's transfer rules.
Senator Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun, described the TSSAA's proposal as 'tone deaf' in a statement to The Tennessean on Thursday.
The proposal, released Tuesday and to be discussed at the TSSAA Legislative Council's special-called meeting on Monday, would allow athletes one free transfer to another school without loss of eligibility as long as it's not for athletic reasons.
Lowe said the proposal does not align with House Bill 25, which he is sponsoring and if passed into law would allow athletes one free transfer without restrictions regardless of the reason.
'Upon reviewing the (TSSAA's) proposal, we notified (TSSAA executive) director (Mark) Reeves that it seemed tone deaf to all the previous conversations we previously had,' Lowe said, adding that Lowe and HB25 author Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, will proceed with their legislation.
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Reeves did not immediately respond to a text message from The Tennessean seeking response to Lowe's statement. Reeves did speak after the TSSAA's Board of Control meeting on Thursday, saying he hoped the TSSAA's new proposal 'would be sufficient in the eyes of the legislature.'
The two sides have communicated for more than a year about the TSSAA's transfer rules, with TSSAA member schools wishing to keep the long-standing bylaw that requires athletes who leave one school for another in a different zone to be ineligible for one calendar year from their last varsity game unless they have a bona fide change of address.
Legislators are pushing to make the rule less restrictive. Their interest increased leading up to the Tennessee legislature's approval of a $447 million statewide publicly funded school voucher program.
The TSSAA Legislative Council unanimously denied a proposal at its Feb. 4 meeting that aligned with HB25 and would have allowed an unrestricted one-time transfer for athletes. But Council members said they wanted to find a pathway for students to transfer without restriction as long as the move was for academic, social-emotional, environmental or mental health reasons.
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The TSSAA's new proposal would require the school from which the student is transferring to provide verification that the move is not for athletic reasons.
Lowe said students' privacy would be violated during that process. He said it would also expose schools to potential litigation if they pushed back against an athlete's transfer request; that is viewed as a gray area as the Court of Appeals deemed athletic participation in Tennessee to be 'a mere privilege' and not a right in the 2015 case Bean v. Wilson County School System.
Milan athletics director Greg Scott and other members of the TSSAA Board of Control have no power to make legislative decisions. But one of their jobs is to rule on hardship applications for students who wish to gain immediate eligibility after transferring for reasons related to academics, mental health or otherwise.
Scott said most schools he talks with aren't in favor of a one-time transfer rule in any form, but he believes the Board has become more lenient in its recent hardship rulings.
'We have approved more of those in the past several months, probably, than we have in my 12 years on the Board, when it comes to mental health,' Scott said.
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Board member Bryan True, who is assistant principal and athletics director at Loretto, agreed with that assessment.
Regarding the TSSAA's new proposal, True said an increase in transfers, even if for academic reasons, can have a ripple effect that might hurt small schools.
'If I'm a small school and I've got a large school in my county, they can offer a lot more electives than I can,' True said. 'We've got to look at that. What are we doing to small schools here? It could damage small schools in that situation.'
Days before releasing its proposal, the TSSAA sent out a survey to more than 6,000 Tennessee high school coaches asking if they were in favor of a transfer rule mirroring HB25. Out of 2,675 responses, 54% were not in favor.
Fulton athletics director and boys basketball coach Jody Wright was one who voted no. He believes illegal recruiting between schools would increase and schools who abide by the rules would suffer as a result.
Wright also understands the growing school choice philosophy across the nation. Florida began allowing unlimited transfers without restriction in 2016. Indiana's board of directors will discuss a one-time transfer rule in May after it passed its executive board last week. Oklahoma and New Jersey passed a one-time transfer rule in 2023. Other state associations in Illinois, Arkansas and Missouri, are monitoring state legislation that could have a ripple effect on their rules.
'I haven't read the (new) proposal but it at least has some guardrails on it,' Wright said. 'It's going to be hard to not have some type of policy in place, seeing that legislators passed a voucher program. They're not going to spend millions of dollars on a bill and not allow a kid to play athletics."
Reach sports writer Tyler Palmateer at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee lawmaker calls new TSSAA 1-time transfer proposal 'tone deaf'
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