Ask The Unknown Parent, Part 2

The Unknown Parent is a series of musings for Sports360AZ.com from an anonymous parent of athletes. The parent is an Arizona high school sports fan from their time involved in education, coaching, and athletics. Want to have your questions or comments featured in future articles? Email TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com.

This is Part 2 of a Q&A with Brad Cesmat, the founder of Sports360AZ

For Part 1, CLICK HERE

Brad Cesmat: Does GPA truly matter, or have times changed in recruiting enough that you only have to worry about what’s on the tape?

Unknown Parent: Grade Point Average Matters, but not in the same way that it used to matter. It used to be that your minimum 2.3 core GPA was a baseline qualification for Division 1 NCAA eligibility- when I was in school, you’d hear college coaches and high school coaches say things like “what do we have to do to get so-and-so qualified?”

The answer was usually to get a tutor or talk to a teacher about redoing assignments. Now, if you don’t have the minimum requisite 2.3 core course GPA, coaches look at you like your pants are on backwards and you’re wearing underwear on your face. It’s a MAJOR red flag in the age of Course Hero, and Quora, and DuoLingo, and Chat GPT, and kids using Discord servers or group texts while they all take Canvas quizzes, that you can’t at least cheat your way to an average of one B and two C’s across your core coursework. When I was in high school, athletes weren’t expected to be brainiacs. They’d look at your effort on the court/field/diamond/track, and believe they could channel that effort into academic success with the right resources. They’d use “will” to solve a “skill” issue. Now, kids are drowning in resources. You have to be a really special player for people to overlook the fact that you’re failing when learning the material has taken a backseat to just locating it. Failing classes used to be an indicator that you needed help. Now it’s an indicator of laziness, and coaches will choose low intelligence over low effort 10 out of 10 times.

BC: The AIA is considering a transfer portal period. How would that impact competitive balance?

UP: If the AIA adopts a true transfer portal period, like they have in the state of Nebraska, the rich will get richer. The way things work in Nebraska, is that as long as you inform the state association of your intent to transfer prior to May 1, there is no penalty associated with transferring. The AIA already made the move to allow free transfers as long as the following year isn’t spent on varsity- so a freshman playing football can play JV at another school, penalty-free. To me, that’s good enough, but I also have zero interest in weighing in on one of the most complicated issues in all of parenting, much less high school sports. The reasons for transferring are all so personal. I can say that my kids go to the school they are boundaried for, and it’s a public school. I’m not asking for an award, or saying the old way is the right way. There are charter options nearby that we considered, and two other public schools in our vicinity that would have been an equal drive (one of which would see a massive increase in playing time because they aren’t very good), but we chose their school for the curricular offerings, not the extracurricular options. I can only speak for myself on this, but my family needs to be rooted in our neighborhood. Our church is nearby, our schools are nearby, the businesses we frequent are nearby- my partner and I try to teach our kids to be the difference, not to seek the difference.But if one of my sons was a QB, and it was more important to him to have the opportunity to play in a complimentary, developmental system than it was to have kids from the neighborhood in his math class, as a family, we’re making that move… and taking any opportunity available to avoid penalty for making that move. I’d feel the same way if any of my other kids wanted to be part of a specific speech and debate club, or have the best available music program, or cheerleading program. So far, all of my children are happy to just show up at the school I send them to.

At the same time, do I judge dads that seek to move their kids around like a chess piece in search of high school glory, at the expense of their kids’ ability to handle adversity or have a continuous memory of developing relationships and playing the hadn’t they’re dealt to the best of their ability. Absolutely. We all judge those dads, But the thing about those dads is, they don’t care about our opinions. They’re laser focused on their human child winning Best In Show like they’re a well-groomed poodle. If there’s a high school transfer portal, those dads are going to abuse it, and the same programs are going to keep winning for eternity.

BC: What about transfer players becoming eligible and replacing a starting player? I hear stories of coaches promising that their kids would start all season, only to have the coach renege as soon as a transfer becomes eligible.

UP: It’s interesting that you ask this, because there’s a story out of Skyline High in Washington state right now where parents actually involved themselves in the process of determining who is playing, to the point of the head coach getting suspended, and then the coaches issuing a statement through Gino Simone (Jordan Simone’s brother) that they’d boycott if the coach weren’t re-instated. The coach, Peyton Pelluer, ended up getting reinstated. Still, it was supposedly over the senior quarterback playing behind a transfer sophomore, who was the son of a University of Washington LB coach. It’s all extraordinarily messy, but it happens at every school, every year. In the scenario you described, coaches are making promises, and that’s something I can’t imagine going through as a parent. Every parent of a high school athlete is sort of like an agent- you want your client to be part of a winning organization, but most of all, you want your client to get theirs.

Meanwhile, most coaches are trying to teach sacrifice, teamwork, and the greater good- but it’s hard as a parent not to have a scarcity mindset. There’s only one ball, only 48 minutes in a game, only so many offensive snaps- we’re all good with the team winning as long as our kid gets a chance to shine. I don’t condone crashing out on the coaching staff or running to social media, but I will say that if a coach isn’t being truthful, I’ll never shed a tear for the drama that manifests from those lies. If a coach risks undoing all the effort they put into building a successful, cohesive team by hiding their intentions, who am I to grieve if the whole thing blows up in their face? I played sports in an era where we had competition days. You’d have to re-earn your spot. Even the college-bound athletes. Now, it feels like promises are made before anyone even takes the practice field. If a coach is breaking those promises, they’re shortsighted, and they’ll eventually have the exact amount of success and disharmony that they deserve. 

-The Unknown Parent