Proposed GHSA bylaw takes aim at middle-school recruiting

The Georgia High School Association is ready to make it harder for high schools to use sports camps to recruit middle-school athletes and for parents and athletes to use camps to shop for high schools.

A proposed bylaw, which could be voted on April 17 at the GHSA’s executive committee meeting, would make middle-school students ineligible until the 11th grade if they attend a high school skills camp and then transfer to the hosting high school.

“These camps are good fundraising events for the schools, so we certainly don’t want kids not to be able to do those things,” GHSA executive director Robin Hines said, “but we just don’t want kids going to a camp and then all of a sudden transferring to those schools.”

GHSA president Jim Finch said he’s heard from several member schools calling for oversight of undue influence placed on younger players. Some have directed him to social-media accounts that show high schools recruiting middle-school students in ways that colleges use to recruit high-school students.

“Undue influence has more recently been aimed at middle-school students in the way of QB/WR camps, OL/DL camps, 7-on-7 showcases, official visits and anything else you can think of,” Finch said. “For example, high school A hosts a football camp that attracts or invites middle-school athletes from middle schools who are in the feeder zones for high schools B, C, D, E and F to their spring camp, much the same way a (school such as the) University of Georgia would invite high-school athletes to their camp on campus. Miraculously, those attracted/invited middle-school athletes are transferring to high school A.”

The proposal would require high schools hosting skills camps or official visits to provide a list of attendees and working staff. The rules would not affect students attending camps within their current high school attendance zone.

Current GHSA rules generally require that transferring high-school students sit out sports for one year unless they move into their new school’s attendance zone, but middle-school students entering the ninth grade aren’t subject to that rule. That makes middle-schoolers attractive to athletic programs looking outside their boundaries, especially to the many private and city schools that can accept students regardless of where they live.

Savvy parents of athletes also know it’s easier to pick a high school before the ninth grade because of the GHSA’s bona-fide move requirements that kick in afterward. Skills camps are a way to visit prospective schools. Some rising ninth-graders have even posted their high school choices on social media.

The GHSA already has recruiting and undue-influence rules that apply to enticing eighth-graders, but camp attendance doesn’t meet the criteria unless camp coaches or school officials make direct overtures to students about transferring.

The proposed bylaws would change that, effectively defining camp attendance as undue influence. To give it more teeth, the bylaw would make the sit-out period two years instead of one since freshmen rarely play varsity.

Hines said the new proposal is similar to existing undue-influence bylaws that apply to high-schoolers.

“We already have a bylaw that says, for example, if you’re getting hitting lessons from a high-school coach and you end up at (that coach’s) school, that’s undue influence,’’ Hines said. “We allow the [Georgia Athletic Coaches Association] to do all-star games, and if a player in one of those games is coached by a coach at another high school and moves to that high school, that’s considered undue influence. This [proposed bylaw] is applying the same rule to camps and those middle-school kids.”

GHSA vice president Curt Miller, the Oconee County athletic director, submitted the proposal, which must be approved in committee and could be tweaked before going before the full executive committee. Miller is traveling on spring break and unavailable for comment.