Recruiting charge leads to work on clarifying SDHSAA policies

Dana Hess

For the S.D. Newspaper Association

PIERRE – The South Dakota High School Activities Association board of directors is considering adding more specific language to its policy against recruiting student athletes from one school to another. 

“We had a charge of recruiting this year,” said SDHSAA Executive Director Dan Swartos, noting that it was the first one in his six years with the association.  

While the association had a policy against the recruitment of athletes, there was nothing specific spelled out as to what sort of inducements were prohibited and what sort of punishment would await a school that was guilty of recruitment.  

Swartos told the board at its meeting Nov. 2 meeting that the changes being proposed could be voted on by the member schools as a constitutional amendment or treated like an interpretation of the rule and be endorsed by the board.  

The more specific language prohibits school personnel or booster clubs from making special arrangements that provide a student or a student’s family with benefits not offered to other students. Those could include jobs or housing for parents, residential location offers, promises of playing time, financial aid to parents or students, or any benefit not sanctioned by SDHSAA guidelines.  

The proposal board members saw also spelled out ways schools or individuals may try to exert undue influence on student athletes through calls, emails, texts, letters, cards or questionnaires designed to persuade the athlete to switch schools. This includes invitations to summer camps or open gyms. 

The new language spells out the penalties for schools and coaches guilty of recruiting. They include suspension of the school from regular season and post-season activities, suspension of the coach from all coaching duties or the banning of parents/alumni/supporters from attendance at sanctioned activities.  

In the past “there wasn’t anything specifically laid out for the coach or the school that was doing the recruiting,” Swartos said.  

There’s nothing the association can do, Swartos explained, if an employer offers a sweetheart deal to an athlete’s parents that induces them to move to that community.  

According to state rules, students are allowed to transfer one time. It can be tough, Swartos said, to discern the motivation for that transfer.  

“It’s really, really hard to figure that out if it’s something that they’re allowed to do,” Swartos said.  

Board members will study the new language and discuss it at their meeting in January.