[Hoot Gibson]

I think this will get very ugly and it will end amateur sports. If this keeps going the way it’s going you will see the end of high school sports all together. Club sports will pop up everywhere and kids will be paid to play at a very young age.

The quality of high schools sports is already spiraling toward a crash because of KHSAA transfer rules being haphazardly enforced. I am not going to accuse any coach or school of illegally recruiting players but it is obvious that transfers of top tier players among the better programs is becoming more common every year.

I am fundamentally in favor of eliminating rules regarding transfers, but the rules are on the books and I am also fundamentally opposed to the failure of the KHSAA to enforce those rules fairly across the board.

As far as payments to high school athletes, I have never understood how governments and athletic associations can prevent players from profiting from their work. If a kid wants to endorse some product and a company is willing to pay for the endorsement, then I don't see a problem. I am sure that companies will be trying to identify future star collegiate and professional athletes and sign them to contracts as early as possible, but I don't see that happening often enough to destroy high school sports.

This is off topic but I don’t believe transfers are the problem. I believe lack of enough quality programs in this state force kids to look around at other places to play. Ohio has transfers but that state has a ton of talent and a ton of great programs so it goes unnoticed

I agree with you to a point but it is much easier for good programs to "attract" talented transfers in metro areas like central Kentucky, NKY, Louisville, etc. It is much more difficult for good rural county programs to attract transfers because of the distances involved. What is going on in central Kentucky is destroying the class system. When a team draws the best talent from a population of students that is several times its own enrollment, then they should be able to compete well above their classification. It is a matter of time before some parent disgruntled at his kid's playing time, or some other coaching offense, gets some of the "have" programs in some hot water.

There have always been transfers but in the past most transfers were the result of kids looking for opportunities for more playing time. What is going on now is closer to LeBron James's attempts to play GM and build super teams through player acquisitions.

I remember just a few years ago Johnson Central had 6 different counties represented on their football team at the Jr High level now I’m not sure if all 6 counties stayed through high school. They had Johnson, Floyd, Lawrence, Martin, Magoffin, and a kid from Morgan Co.
So fairly easy to do in rural areas as well.

Academically, Johnson Central has a much better school system than any of the adjoining counties. The school had a lot of out of district students when their football program was not very good and they were losing many of their best football players to Paintsville. That is quite different than getting D-1 talent transferring into the district at the high school level on a steady basis. Still, the population of students that can opt to attend Johnson Central without making a long commute is very small compared to the schools in the areas that I mentioned.

Even if Johnson Central were recruiting players from Floyd, Lawrence, Martin, Magoffin, and Morgan Counties, I have not noticed many D-1 recruits transferring in to play for JC. Maybe I missed some that you can name. I do recall some D-1 recruits who lived in the JC district but played for the Tigers. I'm not complaining about that either, BTW. Paintsville is one of the strongest schools in the area academically and at the time, the Tigers also had a better football program. You can't fault parents for sending their kids to a great school with a better football program.