With HS basketball here, more perspective on transfers

The transfer talk has been centered on the football scene most of this week, but with the Pizza Hut Little Four Tournament coming into focus now, more hoops talk is hitting the floor.

Before we go deeper into the hoops transfer discussion let’s take another quick look back at some thoughts on the football cases.

One point I wanted to look at further was the transfer to enter the IB program which is supposed to help you reach a higher level of academics and prepare you better for college.

The word from Grimsley circles was in some part that Keenan Allen was at Grimsley to be in the IB program and not his brother Zach Maynard. If that is the case then Allen has no business in an IB program, he was one of the Grimsley athletes that were put off of the team during the summer in the off-season, because of grades.

That would seem to prove deadly to me, because if you are already struggling then why would you be going for a more stringent set of academic offerings. Zach is not in the IB program this year and if Keenan is, then he is in over his head.

The kids need help at the fundamental level beginning in 9th grade if they are to be able to handle the tougher expectations in 11th and 12th. This also applies to being ready for the crucial SAT testing.

On the basketball front we are hearing much about the kids that have left Page and Smith for Northeast Guilford. Based on what we’ve been told Hawkins from Smith and Trapp from Page are now at Northeast and will form a very competitive backcourt this season for coach Curtis Hunter. Hawkins had been at Page already before he made the jump to Smith.

The word on the street and around the basketball courts is that the area kids really do want to play for Coach Hunter. Hunter brings a very impressive resume with his background at North Carolina and his HS All-American status. It is a little surprising that you’d leave Gene Banks, now the head man at Smith to go elsewhere.

Norrtheast has improved immensely since Hunter took over and now he has a program that players want to be a part of.

On the Northern Guilford front we have Coach Stan Kowaleski and he comes to NGHS from High Point Central. Coach Kowaleski had much success at HPC and now he plans on doing the same thing at Northern. Tim Frye is a sophomore that played for Stan at Central but he was living in the Ragsdale district from what I have been told. Frye is a very good player even though he is only in the 10th grade.

Frye was headed back to Ragsdale but his family bought a house out in the Northern Guilford school district and now he is legally at Northern. If a kid’s parents want their child to play for a coach so bad that they buy a house in the NGHS district what are you going to do? You have to respect the parents’ wishes and play ball. You also have to respect Stan Kowaleski because he is a very good coach.

There is another kid that is going to Northern but from what I am hearing he came in from Northeast during the re-alignment. This kid is a tall kid and must be in the 9th or 10th grade to be at Northern because that’s all they have there, 9th and 10th graders. I will have to do more research on this kid because all I know so far is what I have heard some of the coaches and AD’s saying.

There’s also a kid in question that is supposively at Northern and the word is he came in from out-of-county. This young man is said to be from Bartlett Yancey over in Caswell County. We will be looking more closely into this case as well.

As you can see there is a lot going on around the HS scene, a lot of coming and going and we will keep an eye on it.

In closing out this session, if a kids parents want to move their family into a new school district so their son or daughter can go to a certian school and play for certain coach what are we going to do about it? If kids want to travel from their current residence and play for a school in another district is that so bad?

If they want to play for a certain coach or school and otherwise they wouldn’t be playing, it is better for them to at least be playing and doing something. It’s tough but the current coaches are going to have to work harder and make an all-out effort to keep the kids playing at their designated school.

If the parents want to move the kids to another district and have them play somewhere else, this day and time, that is their business. Coaches you are going to have to work harder to keep the kids happy.

On a football note when I was at Western Guilford way back in the 70’s we had Billy Thomas move in from Page so he could play for the Hornets(he was a punter/kicker and receiver), Carl Pemberton came in from Smith(he was a defensive back) and Linnett Price came to us from Monroe Parkwood and he lived with his sister in an apartment complex over on West Market Street so he could play for the Hornets.(Price was a fullback/linebacker and he got a scholarship to Western Carolina so it turned out to be a good move for him.)

*****Another quick football footnote:Keith Love was by far the standout player for the Smith Golden Eagles this season, he was their best player, and their Quarterback. The Eagles did not win a game but Love was solid throughout. How did Love end up at Smith? He transferred in from Eastern Guilford.(EG has lost 3 starting QB’s in four years to transfer)*****

4 thoughts on “With HS basketball here, more perspective on transfers

  1. Many times the transfers are because the kid is getting beat out for playing time at one school so he runs to another. The problem arises when coaches are trying to get kids to their schools like Hunter and Stan obviously do.

    Many new high school coaches think they are coaching in college and try and recruit players. That is unethical.

    Andy, there are a lot of very good coaches in the county. Just because a kid changes schools doesn’t mean the coach he left is bad and the one he is going to is all of a sudden great. Kids these days have learned to bail out as soon as something gets tough. Instead of working through their problems or competing for playing time, they run to another school and hope it is better there. Most of the same problems that they had resurface at the new school too.

  2. Joe, you are exactly right when you mention the part about this not being all of the coaches fault but I still feel the coaches are going to have to work harder today than they did in the past to keep the players. Our coaches are not bad but the kid as you say may feel they can do a better job with a different coach and many times that proves not to be the case and the kid ends up coming back to his old school. That’s when as a coach you have to accept the kid back with open arms and that might be tough for some to do but we all have to agree, the coaches need all the players and all the help they can get and quality help never hurts.

    I never meant to imply that are coaches are bad, just that they have to work harder. They told us with all this new technology that things would get easier but that is not the case when it comes to putting the best team on the field or on the court.

    Sometimes coaches, players, and parents have to swallow their pride to complete the ride.

  3. Andy, I agree with you and Joe concerning the transfers in Football and Basketball…….You know we must remember that “many” of these kids grew up either playing for or “trying” to play for the Greensboro Gators AAU Basketball teams. Let me explain, I feel that Vic deserves a lot of credit for really raising the bar for basketball in Greensboro. the parents and the kids were introduced to “transfering” from AAu program to AAU program from an early age.

    Your thoughts on Dudley “The Academy” Basketball “transfer” program and Greensboro Day “Private school” Basketball “transfer” program. The last time I checked ….. Pizza Hut Little Four Tournament has been dominated by these two “transfer” programs……..No offense taken, none given.

  4. Athletic transfers will continue within the system until GCS does something about it. It’s not just the students and their parents it’s also coaches that are recruiting from outside their district. Maybe it’s time GCS instituted a policy similar to the NCAA’s…you transfer, you sit out a year from sports. May be too harsh but something has got to be done.

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