High school sports are beginning to look more like NCAA 2.0, where constant transfers and even seeking to profit off name, image and likeness are starting to emerge.
In Arizona, more coaches are calling it quits or moving to other schools. Players are transferring. Administrators and coaches try to save face, talking up culture. But if there aren’t players sticking it out, if loyalty is lost, what happens to that culture?
What makes or breaks a high school sports culture in today's what-can-you-do-for-me world?
"Kids need to know you're authentic," said Jeremy Hathcock, the new head football coach at Buckeye Verrado. "If guys are going to talk character with quotes, curriculum, etcetera, it has to be embedded in the program year-round for it to take root."
Football more than any other sport in Arizona — just because of the sheer numbers — has become a transient landscape since then-Arizona Gov. Fife Symington signed into law in 1994 open enrollment, which allows students to attend public schools outside their neighborhood district boundaries. That, in turn, has opened the door for top high school athletes to traverse the Phoenix area, choosing programs that will best draw attention from college recruiters to their talents.
In the past couple of decades, the Arizona Interscholastic Association tried a 50-mile transfer rule, making athletes ineligible for a year if they move within a 50-mile radius to another school. That didn’t last.
In 2016, they enacted the current transfer rule, making athletes ineligible for the first half of the season for a first-time transfer, and ineligible for an entire year for a second-time transfer. Out-of-state athletes are eligible to move in and play right away, if it is their first time playing at an AIA school. Hardship cases can be considered by the AIA to make exceptions, but that isn't the norm.
That hasn't slowed the transfers. More than 20 players, almost half of whom were projected starters, left traditional powerhouse Scottsdale Saguaro since it won the 6A football title last Dec. 1, as the Sabercats start over with a third head coach in three years.
There have been many more transfers from all parts of the state. And if they can't win hardships, they're willing to sit half the season, knowing they'll be on the field when it counts the most, with a chance to hold up a state championship trophy in the end.
"I don't think I would call it out of control," said Jim Dean, assistant executive director of the AIA. "Certainly, open enrollment created those transfers, because back in the day you have to move into a boundary to be eligible.
"But I think we've been able to address it. The thing we keep working with our athletic directors on is that, 'Hey, transfers are going to happen. That's OK. School choice is part of it. But make sure that if you throw a hardship in, that's it's truly a hardship and not athletically motivated.' "
Because certain schools have feasted on marquee transfers, the AIA in 2019 started the eight-team Open Division playoff in football to create parity. The organization took the top eight teams from among the large schools (6A, 5A and 4A) to play for the ultimate state championship prize.
“I think when you win, they come,” Peoria Centennial football coach Richard Taylor said of the transfer epidemic. “When you don’t, they leave. I think that’s the way it is today. Even in college, there are people who move around so much. The coach yells at him, or if he’s not playing enough, he goes in the portal.”
The Open concept has since expanded to boys' and girls' basketball and track and field. Starting in the 2024-25 school year, there will be a small school (1A-3A) Open state tournament for boys and girls basketball. There will also be an Open state tournament for boys and girls soccer.
There was talk last year of making local transfers ineligible for the second half of the season, including playoffs, while allowing them to play in the first half, a move that likely would have drawn a legal challenge from parents. The proposal was rejected by the AIA.
Are Arizona high schools mimicking the NCAA?
The high school level is mimicking the NCAA in a lot of ways. Now the NIL concept, in which college players can cash in on their name, likeness and image, is a potential pitfall for high school players.
Centennial lineman Camren Durfee got dinged on it in the spring, after the AIA gave clarity on how name, image and likeness can be used by high school athletes for profit.
Taylor, the Centennial coach, felt he needed to be more on top of the rules to keep Durfee from unwittingly violating the NIL bylaw when he partnered with an online company that provides NIL merchandising opportunities.
Durfee said he just wanted to get shirts made for his family to wear to support him on Friday nights. The next thing he knew Centennial turned in an NIL violation report to the AIA, which was reduced from a season suspension to two games after the AIA Executive Board heard from Durfee, his parents and the school’s athletic director at a board meeting in the spring.
“The sad part is he only had it up for 48 hours and didn’t even sell any,” Taylor said. “Sadly, there were lots of other kids (in the Valley) who did the same thing and they were not turned in. There were at least 30 other kids out there going, ‘Wow, I’m lucky.’
“I understand the AIA needed someone to make an example. Unfortunately, it was our kid. He apologized so much. I said, ‘No, I should have been the one apologizing.’ “
There is so much to keep track of anymore in high school sports, with the often misunderstood NIL an added component that can create headaches and traps.
The typical high school coach gets a stipend of $3,000-5,000 a year. With parents, some more pushy than others, and the pressures to win, coaches don’t last. Since last season, there have been more than 50 coaching changes just in Arizona high school football.
“If you put in the right time, you’re making 20 cents an hour,” said former longtime Tucson-area football coach Jeff Scurran. “Then, when you pile on all of these other duties on top of it, you start to scratch your head and go, ‘I want out of here.’
“None of them are in this for the money.”
Scurran shared a graphic he saw online of a pyramid on head coaching comparing what people see it as — Xs and Os, alumni, running, logistics, apparel, player development — and what it really is: youths, community, strength and conditioning, media, recruiting, terminology, finance, fundraising, equipment/budget, culture, players, parents, staff.
“The change has been constant over time,” Scurran said. “There were different changes. I’m a history teacher. Some people have trouble adjusting to a new way."
Florida last month became the latest state to allow high school athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness without jeopardizing their eligibility. The law prohibits the athletes from using their school's logo or uniform and schools aren't allowed to use NIL to entice students to transfer, among other restrictions.
Scurran wonders how well that all will work.
“The new NIL deal (in Florida for high school athletes), all of these people have questions and there aren’t answers for them. The colleges don’t have answers for them. How are the high schools going to have answers for them?
“This new thing with NIL, that’s a deal-changer for everything. It took us a while to get used to, ‘Hey, Coach, if I can’t play, what am I doing here?’ We always wanted the kid to say, ‘I don’t care where you play me, Coach.’ There still are a lot of kids like that. But there are a lot of the other ones and they want what they want.”
Building a team from the community vs. transfers
Peoria Liberty, last season's nationally ranked Open Division champion, has built a strong football culture from within the community, a successful youth feeder program called the Junior Lions. Some youth players in the Liberty area chose to start high school at faraway places, like Saguaro, when that was the magnet for top youth players in the Valley. Now some are coming back.
Liberty was built without marquee transfers. Now, they're getting them since last year's breakthrough season, including at least three starters from Saguaro.
"There are a lot of great qualities about Liberty and why we chose for our sons to go there for academics and athletics, and why it is attracting more student-athletes than in the past," said Jason Stam, whose sons Jax and Keaton starred at Liberty. "Liberty is a great academic school, first of all. It’s definitely a family environment and their game days are second to none. Packed every game.
"Having been on the boosters, the community has really rallied around the program over the past five years. Their coaches could all be at the collegiate level and they put in the work to get the boys prepared for game day,'' he added.
He cited head coach Colin Thomas as an ''offensive genius'' and also singled out defensive coordinator Travis Guiney.
Centennial's Taylor, whose team lost to Liberty in last year's state final, said he sees kids transferring for various reasons. Perhaps a bully is being allowed to disrupt the culture, driving players out. Or the commute and associated costs for an athlete who moved to a school far from his home district become too much for a family.
Or, they might be drawn to a higher-profile program that attracts college recruiters.
“We had one kid who had an offer at one school and came to our school because he knows that we’re one of the places that (college) recruiters stop,” Taylor said. “They fly into Arizona. They’re going to a few teams on the west side. They’re going to go to a few teams on the east side. And maybe they’ll hit a couple of other places around the state and they’re out of here.
“So they wanted to come where there’s more exposure. I said, ‘Great, you’re welcome to come.’ Other kids come because their friends are there. I know speaking of ours, kids went to a faraway place, then came back. Just the transportation driving across the Valley can be hectic.”
Taylor said that last year he had 160 players in his football program. Out of that, 100 were open-enrollment kids, meaning they came from various parts of the Valley to start their high school careers.
“Without open enrollment, we would have had 20 kids on the freshman team, 20 kids on the JV team and 20 kids on the varsity team," he said. "It wasn’t that long ago, people were saying, 'You've got to be in touch with youth football.’ I thought, ‘Nah, we’re going to play with the kids who show up.’ “
Sometimes, a group of kids and their families from a youth powerhouse want to carry on together after winning as 11- or 12-year-olds band together in high school, even if they have to make the trek 40 miles to another part of the Valley.
That happened at Scottsdale Chaparral two years ago when a powerhouse Goodyear youth program had many of those players travel across the Valley as freshmen. The freshman team romped through the season unbeaten, dominating teams. But most of those players are no longer there, since leaving for other schools.
A dynasty unraveling?
Saguaro is among the powerhouses who have had a strong feeder program, with the Argonauts that Jason Mohns started before he took over the Saguaro program from John Sanders after the 2011 state championship season. Mohns ramped things up with a record string of seven state titles before he left to join Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham's staff.
Saguaro’s dynasty now appears to be slipping. Coaches have left and players are taking advantage of the open enrollment law to head elsewhere.
Zak Hill led the Sabercats to the 6A title in a season filled with adversity last year. There were injuries. Winning 6A almost felt like a consolation prize, with 2023 the first time the school didn’t qualify for the Open playoffs since they began.
Hill, a former offensive coordinator at Boise State and Arizona State, was one-and-done. He’s now working for the NFL Seattle Seahawks. Darius Kelly, who spent one season as an assistant under Hill, was named Saguaro’s third head coach in three years.
Six of Saguaro’s assistants from last season left for other schools. Four went to Brophy to assist head coach Jason Jewell. Another, Andrew Johnson, became head coach recently at Glendale Mountain Ridge. Nick Offenberger, who started the Future U Football Club, a youth program that came after the Argonauts dissolved, is now 2A Heritage Academy’s head coach in Laveen.
Saguaro's new feeder is called the Scottsdale Sabercats.
Chris Somerville, who was Saguaro’s football booster club president from 2020-2023 said he noticed a shift when the Open started in 2019. He said he felt Saguaro became driven by “greed." Parents with too much pull can hurt the culture, he said.
“You have these bleacher parents, we’ll call them bleacher lawyers,” Somerville said. “I told Coach Kelly, some of the parents asked me, ‘Should I transfer?’ I ask, ‘Why are you transferring? What’s the purpose of you transferring?’
“If I’m a senior (for the 2024 season) that didn’t have any offers at all, I wouldn’t want to risk losing five games when you need those five games of opportunities on the field, versus sitting.”
Among the players Saguaro lost in the offseason were two-way star Dajon Hinton, who has transferred to Hamilton, along with starting running back Jacob Brown and starting wide receiver Reiss Rinaldi. Rinaldi set a Saguaro record in the 400 meters this spring in track. Starting center Bryce Pollard has left for Centennial. Starting safety Zeth Theus left for Peoria Liberty.
Starting tight end Kam Segall is now at Liberty, along with starting offensive lineman Lajay Salas. Starting linebacker Owen Pimbert transferred to Phoenix Pinnacle.
"I love Sag and I have nothing but love for Saguaro, coach DK, and all the admin there, but I have to do what’s best for me," Hinton told The Arizona Republic after he transferred at the end of the school year. "It's not the same Sag I came to as a 14-year-old. For my senior year, I want to compete at a high level and, in the end, win an Open championship. There’s no doubt in my mind that Hamilton is the perfect fit."
Hinton won't have to sit out any games his senior year, because he didn't play last season due to an injury.
Kelly told The Republic in May that he can’t control what’s happened, but what he can control is the future, adding, “I'm happy about the things that have been put into place in the past two months since I've been here.
“We're going to continue to do that,” Kelly said. “And that's going after all of our team goals, our values, our core values, toughness, accountability, growth and trust."
To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert
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