November 18, 2010

Ocean City's pipeline to St. Joseph

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


There are four football players who were part of the Ocean City High School program that are now reportedly at St. Joseph High School in Hammonton.

One of them – Mike Adams, a strong, talented 6-foot-2, 235 pound junior – left over the summer and is part of the St. Joe team that won the Cape-Atlantic League’s United Conference championship and will play in North Jersey on Saturday night against undefeated St. Anthony of Jersey City in the NJSIAA playoffs. The other three, including one player who started the first couple games for the Raiders, left during the season.

Now, these transfers have nothing to do with football. That these young men all play football is just a coincidence. NJSIAA rules clearly forbid a student-athlete to transfer from one school to another for “athletic advantage”. For the purposes of that rule, athletic advantage is defined as “seeking a superior athletic team; seeking relief due to a conflict with the philosophy or action of an administrator, teacher or coach related to sports; seeking a team consistent with the student’s athletic abilities; or seeking a means to nullify punitive action by the previous school."

You can be sure that none of these apply to this situation. Because, if it was determined that any of them did apply, the athletes could be declared ineligible to compete by the NJSIAA and any games in which they played could be forfeited.

Ocean City has been involved in the transfer of athletes, both to and from, in the past.

In fact, Ben Bethea, who has been playing so well on defense, came to Ocean City this year from Egg Harbor Township. He had played his youth football for the Ocean City Hawks but his family moved to EHT. He returned this year.

Pat Tolomeo and Jack Nixon were both successful youth athletes in Ocean City who decided to attend St. Augustine Prep. Both returned to Ocean City after a year or two. Scott Bittner and Chris Carideo, both college basketball coaches now, transferred from OCHS to The Prep. Trey Severs went to Ocean City as a freshman, to Cape May Tech as a sophomore and junior, then back to OCHS for his senior year.

The reasons for all of those situations are probably different. There are a lot of reasons why a student might switch schools. In the case of Ocean City and St. Joe, it certainly isn’t for better facilities. St. Joseph is located in a renovated public school that was Hammonton High School back when Dixie Howell was coaching.

On the other hand, St. Joe is much smaller. There are approximately 320 students in the top three grades at St. Joseph and 984 in Ocean City. So the class sizes are probably smaller.

There are a lot of people who don’t like the fact that student-athletes can go from one school to another so easily. The NJSIAA tried to tighten its rule, requiring transfers to sit out one full calendar year without a change of residence. But there were so many appeals that they switched back to the 30-day rule.

In an interview after his team played St. Joe recently, Tony DeRosa, the EHT coach, called the Wildcats an “all star team”. That is probably an overstatement but there is no doubt that a winning program at a private school attracts athletes who want to be part of it. And anybody, no matter where they live, can attend a private school. There are no sending districts.

Some of us believe that there is nothing wrong with sending your son or daughter to a school that will give them athletic opportunities. If a parent had a son who wanted to be a doctor and switched him to a school with superior science courses, that parent would be given high grades. But if it is done for a daughter who is a good basketball or soccer player, some call it cheating.

The NJSIAA defines recruiting as offering free tuition or other monetary assistance. If you know of anyone who received such enticements to attend a school it should be reported to the NJSIAA. But there is nothing wrong with the parents of a student-athlete using the quality of a school’s athletic program as one of the factors in selecting a school.

Interestingly enough, there may be a lot more of this in the future. Gov. Christie signed a bill a few months ago that will allow parents to send their children to public schools beyond their district boundaries at no charge to them. And Ocean City High School is one of the schools that has applied to the state to accept students from outside its district. So have Hammonton, Lower Cape May and Middle Township.

Would a student athlete from, say Northfield, who uses this school-choice program to attend Ocean City High School be eligible to compete?

Yes, says the NJSIAA. That Northfield resident could play immediately at OCHS. However, if the student-athlete decides after a year or so that there is too much red in Ocean City and wants to switch to Mainland, the high school in his district, he would be ineligible to play at Mainland for 30 days in each season just like any other transfer.

You can understand the frustration of a public school coach when athletes from his district attend a private school instead. But the private schools have to get their students from somewhere.

This fall, the pipeline was running from Ocean City to St. Joseph.


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