Desmond Demas denied transfer to Tomball

[Yeoj]

28 minutes ago, oldman said:

Ruling was the Right Decision.

This needs to be put to bed.  Regular season is beginning and those that are eligible to play need to be the point of discussion 

Did it say it wasn't the right decision? No it didn't. It said the ruling was a bad call by the UIL which I happen to agree with.

[oldman]

Good call by UIL.   Which I agree with!!! Rules are made to be followed.... not made to be broken.

[KB24]

16 hours ago, CardinalBacker said:

There was no problem. Kid didn’t even need to suit up his senior year. Colleges love that.

On a personal note....Have you noticed that nobody has jumped in to defend your “colleges encourage players to skip their senior season” crap?

It doesn’t matter. I don’t need anyone else’s validation. I know first hand it happens, have happened and probably going to continue to happen. 

[texbuzz]

A lot of the comments don't seem to look at the situation comprehensively.  It is certainly not as simple as "Let them play!", "This is a conspiracy!" and "Rules are Rules!!"

If you think of all the moving pieces and processes interacting together, you can unpack this thing a little better.

Purpose of UIL - We seem to minimize the ultimate goal of the school system when we discuss athletics.  The schools primary mission is to educate our young people to a standard.  Academics.  Extracurricular activities/contests are educational activities that provide much needed life experience and education that the classroom cannot provide.  The UIL was formed to attempt to make these contests as fair as possible but also allowing competition.  There are winners and losers, and both experiences are important to growth and development. Are they perfect?  Nope, but there are a lot of smart people trying to accomplish this task.

Transfers aren't positive -  Transfers suck.  You can say it is better for a person or program but I haven't seen any defense for transfers being "good".  By their very nature, one or more of the following is true:

• Kid is leaving a crappy situation, academics, athletics or both. (sucks)
• Somebody is shopping the talent of a child for ulterior motives. (sucks)
• Transfers from struggling schools to good schools do even more harm to struggling schools. (sucks)
• The upheaval of new teachers, curriculum, and standards of a new school will have challenges. (sucks)

Sometimes it is better for the kid and sometimes it is not.  My point is, transfers aren't the magic answer and many times will cause more problems than they solve.

Rule of Law - I am a huge opponent of "Zero Tolerance" rules and management.  It is lazy and cowardly.  While I am a bit of a stickler for rules myself, it is also intellectually dishonest to ignore the context of the individual situation.  Sometimes the answer is "Yeah, this is not going to be satisfying but we must enforce the rule".  And other times the answer is "This is a unique case and this rule will not apply."

Motives - This rule exchanges the "sit a year for every transfer" and tries to discover the motives of people.  Motives are incredibly easy to hide and incredibly difficult to prove.  Therefore, by its very nature, the rule is going to be imperfect.  The PAPF is an attempt to discover motive.  The DEC is an attempt to discover motive.  The SEC is an attempt to discover motive.  Even with three checkpoints, there is no guarantee that this process will get it right.

"That's an awful long post, GET TO THE POINT!"

The UIL used an imperfect but thorough system to enforce a rule that is great in principle and extremely difficult to adjudicate.  It sucks to see a young man with obvious talent not being able to compete but the process is designed to ensure fair competition, not the satisfaction of individual programs or participants.

Edited August 26, 2019 by texbuzz
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