Something stinks in Jeff City and it smells worse than a football team locker room. But the plus side is that this is one football story that doesn’t involve Taylor Swift.
This summer, Kylan Mabins transferred schools from Kickapoo to Glendale in Springfield, Mo. The past two years, Mabins was the star quarterback for the Kickapoo football team. He transferred to Glendale where he planned to play his senior year. The conditions around that transfer are at the center of a firestorm within Missouri high school football.
It is illegal to transfer to a new high school solely for athletic reasons according to Missouri State High School Activities Administration’s bylaws. By those rules, the MSHSAA ruled Mabins ineligible to play this season.
His parents sued, stating that the transfer was fair and that his transfer wasn’t solely for athletic reasons – according to the lawsuit his parents filed – they were being racially harassed at Kickapoo and Glendale offered a better environment.
A Missouri court first upheld MSHSAA’s ruling, but then a higher court threw that decision out this past week. So, basically, the Activities Association got their pass batted down at the line of scrimmage. Mabins should be ruled eligible to play the rest of the season pending the result of the larger lawsuit.
So how does the MSHSAA take the court ruling? About as well as a pee-wee football player not allowed a juice box after the game. They threw a tantrum this past week and went after more players they say are ineligible.
To date, they’ve vacated wins for some of the biggest teams in Missouri – three of which are in the Kansas City area. Grandview, Lincoln Prep, and Park Hill South all had multiple games vacated this past week effectively torpedoing their seasons. Grandview had to vacate four wins – five games total – and went from a record of 6-2 to 2-4. Lincoln went from 7-1 to 2-6, and Park Hill South went from 1-7 to 0-8 after vacating five games.
High school transfers in this area are common and many of them come with a wink and a smile. MSHSAA is certainly within their rights to enforce transfer rules – but this seems awfully heavy handed and it also seems directly related to them getting tackled in court this month.
With more forfeits likely to come on the horizon, I would estimate that no high school team is safe right now and every head coach and athletic director are opening their emails very carefully. My guess is that this story is going to blow up in the next couple of weeks nationally, as football barrels toward the playoffs later this month. Put simply, the game ain’t over.
I have been a baseball umpire for 35 years, and I often say that the second most argued book in the history of humanity other than the Bible is the rulebook. As officials, we decide in many cases how seriously to enforce certain rules. There’s a rule there about catchers needing to stay within their catcher’s box. However, it is almost never enforced. Same with foul whistles at the end of basketball games or pass interference on Hail Mary plays. Good officials use the rulebook to enhance the game rather than rule with draconian tactics.
We all know that high schools abuse transfers. You can probably think of some quarterback or point guard for your school that either transferred to your school’s rival, or might have dropped out of the sky for your school. We know that isn’t within the spirit of fair play. However, we also know that it hasn’t been policed… until now. There’s a new sheriff in town in Jeff City, however, and they’ve decided in the middle of a school year that these rules should now be enforced.
One thing is certain — nobody is going to come out a winner in this.
(Chris Kamler can X it up with the best of them. Find him on X, formerly known as Twitter, as @TheFakeNed)
