By David Hill

David Hill is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.

There's an uneasy truce across the land. The question is, will it hold?

It's between high school athletics and club sports programs, and it is clearly on shaky ground, with skirmishes breaking out repeatedly. State legislatures have introduced bills to further the mission of club teams, coaches argue over rules against players participating concurrently on school and club teams, and many club programs have grown to overshadow the high school teams in their areas.

With more youngsters opting for local club, all-star, elite, select, and travel programs, will high school teams become little more than recreational activities? Will coaching talent gravitate toward club programs, where there aren't worries over academic eligibility and residency rules? And, ultimately, will school boards turn athletics over to non-school organizations as a way to both save expenses and the headaches of sponsoring sports?

"I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility," says Bob Kanaby, Executive Director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, "that some school administrators or boards of education will look at what's been going on and say getting out of high school athletics is a way to control costs."

Kanaby quickly adds that eliminating school-based sports would be a huge mistake, because institutional athletics are an integral part of American education and community life. But the fact that he can even contemplate such a drastic change is testimony to the burgeoning conflict.

There is no crystal ball that will divine the future of the school and non-school sports team relationship. But a look at certain developments along the front may shed some light on where it's going and how to control it.

CULTURAL CONFLICT
One of the clearest examples of club and school conflict is occurring in soccer, especially in states where high school associations prohibit student-athletes from playing concurrently on both scholastic and non-scholastic teams. Last fall in the Boston area, for example, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Activities Association (MIAA) had to decide whether to grant waivers to certain members of elite-level soccer teams whose summer-ending championships conflicted with the opening preseason practices of the high school season. MIAA rules state that athletes are not eligible for high school play if they miss preseason practice for a club-team match.

"You had a team that played 16 to 18 summer-league season games and qualified for the national championship, which is a huge accomplishment," says Matt Weibe, Director of the Super-Y League, an affiliate of United Soccer Leagues. "But the high school association says, 'No, you can't go, because if you miss high school practice we kick you off the high school team for the rest of the year.' Basically, the association told them to go to high school practices instead of their national league final, which was an important thing for the players. How many kids have a chance to win the national championship?"

Eventually, the MIAA granted waivers so the athletes could take part in both. But the dispute is an example of what can happen when club and school seasons run into one another - perhaps the most common form of conflict. In soccer, that arises in part because of how the game's organizational structure evolved.

"Sports in this country mainly came from the scholastic and collegiate levels, and there are some very traditional sports - football, basketball, baseball - that are very American," says Weibe. "Soccer, though, is the world game. And now, as the game grows and develops much like it has in the rest of the world, it's focused around the club level, which doesn't have anything to do with scholastic soccer.

"In some parts of the country, that's not true, and high school soccer is very big," Weibe continues. "But generally, it's rooted in the club environment, and as the game has grown, more clubs are looking to have year-round programs where kids choose not to play scholastic soccer. So there's a conflict. On the one hand, state associations don't like losing players to club programs, and neither do high school coaches. On the other hand, the club system wants to grow and offer new opportunities."

Weibe sees some high school coaches as having misplaced motives. "High school soccer in some areas is probably more egocentric, built around coaches who just want to win state championships and feel that if they lose their best player they're not going to have a chance," he says. "But does that really help the player who has ambitions to reach a higher level of the game? It doesn't."

The underlying problem, however, is that club programs and high school programs often have very different priorities. For Weibe, denying an athlete the chance to play for a national championship is unjust. For many high school administrators, the idea of a national championship is inappropriate for the age group and should not even be a part of the culture.

But the reality is that many parents and high school athletes want these elite opportunities. And if they are forced to choose, they are willing to forego the high school athletic experience to participate in the club program. Should high school athletic directors say to these athletes, "Goodbye and good luck," or should they try to compromise with the club teams?

TURNING IT OVER?
Crew is not an easy sport to sponsor. A new shell for eight rowers can cost upward of $28,000, and smaller boats are costly, too--not to mention the need for a large, protected body of water, a dock, and transportation to the site. Yet collegiate rowing for women has exploded in the past decade, and grant-in-aid opportunities beckon for high--if only they can gain exposure to the sport.

Enter the Jack London Aquatics Center in Oakland, Calif. Owned by the city of Oakland and run as a nonprofit community organization, the Center began a rowing program for the city's public high school students in the fall of 2003. Twenty-two girls took part last year after Center staff members figuratively knocked on the doors of principals and athletic directors. This year, the center plans to double that number, with returning participants competing in a major regatta in the fall and a spring season to follow for everyone.

"Some of the principals and counselors welcomed us and were excited about the scholarship potential that there is in women's collegiate rowing," says Dede Birch, Director of the Aquatics Center. "But there were others who don't really want us there, because we are diluting their pool of athletes."

Athletic directors who didn't welcome rowing saw little appeal in teams with no school identification, Birch adds. But the club is flourishing despite the naysayers.

The program is not overseen by any school administrators, but it has chosen to follow the high school model for athletic teams. Center staff require student-athletes to meet the academic requirements, including a minimum GPA, that the city school system requires for extracurricular activities. Birch says the program's primary goals are to teach life skills. And the center recently held a recruiting night for rowers who want to crew in college.

Could the Oakland aquatics center arrangement be an emerging model for the way club sports could supplant pure school-based athletics? Is there anything wrong with farming out a team or two? Or even the whole athletic department? After all, the majority of coaches in some school systems no longer work as teachers, and the size of some pay-to-play charges are approaching that of fee-based club programs.

"One of the things that fuels the flames of folks who want athletics and extracurriculars taken out of schools is school funding," says Mark Princehorn, Athletics Administrator at Hilliard (Ohio) Davidson High School, and president-elect of the Ohio Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. "We don't save a whole lot of money by cutting athletics, but it's a very public and emotional thing: 'If you don't pass our school-tax levy, we're going to cut your kid's swimming program.'

"Kids in certain districts in Ohio will pay as much as $500 to play football or run cross country this fall," he continues. "Some folks say, 'Instead of the kid paying $500 to play for a school team, he can pay that same $500 to play for a club team.'"

WORTH FIGHTING FOR
Kanaby understands the appeal of getting schools out of athletics. For some administrators and school boards, as well as some members of the public, the club-centered European model of sports looks good. This, he says, is when people who work in institutional athletics need to remember why schools sponsor sports in the first place, and to make the case for keeping them there.

"There are fewer staff members who are coaching, but there is still a significant number of people who have committed their lives to developing young people within a sphere beyond the classroom," Kanaby says. "In addition, education-based sports programs offer the greatest degree of accountability and evaluation of any amateur sports organization. We have programs that are representatives of schools and communities, and therefore you have a parental influence. There's a forum and a place for grievances. Who do you go to if you have a problem with a club program? You go to the club coach. That, I think, is one of the biggest reasons for keeping these things in our schools and not turning them over to club programs.

"We are participation-bound," Kanaby continues. "We're interested in the greatest numbers. We have kids who are never going to play in college, whereas community-based and club programs philosophically have a different bent. They want only the elite athletes. We want the best athletes, too, but we also make room for those who are far from the best. That is what distinguishes us."

Another factor in favor of scholastic sports is their traditional role in communities. Princehorn grew up in Massillon, Ohio, a town synonymous with high school football, and has noticed the difference in public interest between school and non-school sports events. "You get three or four thousand people cheering for a group of young men or young women playing for their school," he says. "You don't get that in the select or AAU groups outside the school. You may get the moms and dads. But you don't get big crowds coming together to support a community."

Still, the biggest reason to maintain school-based sports is that they are educational, Kanaby says. "Our role is to make certain that these youngsters are adhering to the fact that they're students. And we need to make certain that they're successful as students, not just successful on the playing fields," he says.

"Our role is to use these things in an educational sense to make better human beings out of them--productive citizens, people who are going to contribute to our society," Kanaby continues. "There are things that occur on the field of play that contribute to the holistic development of young people unlike anything else that can occur in school. Sports can bring to the table experiences that simply can't be duplicated in a classroom setting, and that's of benefit to young people and ultimately to this nation."

In other words, high school athletics is worth fighting for. But high school athletic directors may need to do more work on selling its importance to the community. And they may need to work harder with the club teams on communication and compromise.

CONTROLLING CONFLICTS
One of the biggest conflicts between club and high school sports entities is the so-called loyalty rules, whereby state high school associations prohibit high school athletes from participating on a school and nonschool team at the same time. There are many good reasons for the rules. They ensure athletes won't cherry-pick teams, abandoning a losing squad at school for a championship-bound club team. They help avoid situations in which talented star athletes blow off high school practices and show up only for big games or state meets. And they help avoid the situation where an athlete is getting conflicting advice from two coaches at the same time. The rules are also aimed at helping student-athletes lead a balanced life preventing overuse injuries from too much activity.

But several years ago, the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) noticed an unintended drawback, says Jim Desmarais, Executive Director. "In this state, skiing is a big sport," he explains. "We had youngsters who skied for their high school team, then skied for clubs or mountain teams on the weekend. That's because athletes in individual-based sports were allowed to be on outside teams during their season. And yet we didn't allow players who were on team sports to do that. You could have twin sons, and on a Friday one son plays for the high school basketball team and the other son skis for the high school ski team. On Saturday, the second son could go ski on the mountain team but the first wouldn't be allowed to play for an outside basketball team. We felt there was an inconsistency there."

The NHIAA modified the rule so that team-sport athletes could play with in-season clubs, as long as the schedules didn't conflict. Similarly, swimmers may also opt out of, for example, an early-morning school workout in favor of an afternoon club training session - provided they show up at the school practice and contribute to the team in some way, such as by timing laps or coaching younger athletes.

"Quite frankly, should what a youngster does on the weekend be the business of the school?" Desmarais says. "If I'm a basketball player and I get Saturday off, what's wrong with me going down to the YMCA and playing basketball? I'm doing a healthy activity, I'm not hanging out on the street."

In part because of such changes, club-school conflicts are fairly rare in New Hampshire, Desmarais says. But the biggest factor, he adds, is that both sides keep in touch and respect each other's needs. Club and school ice hockey have grown exponentially in the past two decades, yet they co-exist because club seasons stop when the school schedule nears and don't resume until the spring. Multi-sport athletes are very rare now, but Desmarais says youngsters aren't forced to pick between school and club teams in their chosen sport, mostly because the adults work with one another behind the scenes to avoid concurrent scheduling.

"When you have good dialogues with people, you can have agreements," Desmarais says. "I think that's what happened with swimming and AAU basketball, which is as big in this state as anywhere in the nation. We have kids flying all over in the summertime playing AAU basketball. But they respect our seasons and we really appreciate that."

Ohio has no rules against school-team coaches leading teams in other seasons. Princehorn says that can help avoid conflicts that force youngsters to choose. Coaches work both sides and understand the needs of each.

"In a lot of sports, the folks who coach the club teams in the offseason are some of the people who coach in the interscholastic season," he says. "My softball coach here coaches a traveling team in the summer that includes some of his kids and some kids from other schools. As long as that happens, I think the respect for the interscholastic season will remain."

DECISIONS OVER DILEMMAS
Other states are finding similar solutions. The keys seem to be communication, understanding each others' missions and struggles, and agreeing to work together.

In California, the process began a few years ago when California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) officials and youth- and club-sport organizations convened a summit during the spring CIF-State board meeting. Participants included club and school coaches, athletic directors, parents, and athletes who play for scholastic and club teams. No major proposals came out of the meeting, but all involved began to see each others' perspectives. In particular, the adults more clearly saw the interests of student-athletes, says John Tarman, a CIF Assistant Executive Director.

In some cases, it's really the parents who push for club-team participation, hoping it will lead to a scholarship offer, while the kids just want to have fun with a new team, says Tarman. At the meeting, coaches and other adults learned that there can be conflicts over sports within a household.

"We talked about the different perspectives that student-athletes can have versus their parents, versus their club coach, versus their high school coach and athletic director," Tarman says. "It was unbelievably enlightening."

Out of that initial summit came a meeting about six months later of players, coaches, and organizers from the CIF Northern Section and USA Volleyball. They agreed to start talks about reducing conflicts created between organizations.

"We said, 'We understand that club coaches do this for a living, and that many of their athletes do get scholarship offers,'" says Tarman. "'But why do they have to have tryout dates conflict with the CIF playoffs?' Everybody looked around the room, and somebody from club volleyball said, 'You know, you're absolutely right on target here, and I'm going back to my board of directors and recommending some changes in our timelines. We don't need to force quality players who are in the CIF playoffs to skip a practice or a match so they can come to our tryouts. That's just totally insensitive and inappropriate.'"

Similarly, this past spring, the CIF North Coast sectional tennis team championships coincided with an invitational USTA junior nationals-qualifying tournament, meaning several players had to choose between school-team loyalty or going to a national tournament on their own. "That's a hell of a conflict," says Tarman. "And I didn't pull that example out of thin air. I happen to be the liaison for our tournament, and this conflict actually happened. Out of 10 teams, there were three or four that had one or more players who had been invited to this qualifying tournament. The players had to make decisions, and it was tough.

"I don't know that there are right or wrong answers in that situation," says Tarman. "But I think what's important is that the coach is sensitive to understanding the situation, and supports that decision, whichever way it is made. It might mean losing a number-one or number-two singles player, and that's asking a lot of a coach."

The take-away lesson of the summit, the volleyball tête-à-tête, and the tennis tournaments, Tarman says, was that adults need to be sensitive toward student-athletes' needs and conflicts. Coaches and administrators probably can't resolve every problem, he says, but they can at least be open-minded to what's going on and help their athletes through it, whatever the consequences. After all, that's the whole point of scholastic sports.

"I'm not suggesting that we create some kind of nirvana that would relieve student-athletes of having to make a decision," Tarman says. "Particularly in the teenage years, part of our educational mission is to help student-athletes learn that life is about decision-making. But what we can do is increase awareness and understanding, and help administrators and coaches create some controls and policies that will have coaching staffs become more user-friendly to the student-athletes."

Sidebar: ON THE SAME PAGE
The states with the fewest conflicts between club and high school teams seem to be those where there is the most positive communication between the two groups. For example, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) and the state's youth soccer organization have worked to communicate on issues that affect both sides.

As a result, they have joined forces to implement a cross-over sportsmanship rule. When an athlete or coach is suspended from youth soccer for unsportsmanlike conduct, he or she is also suspended from high school competition, and vice versa.

"We were approached by the state youth soccer folks because they felt that if coaches and kids knew they were going to miss more than their youth soccer games for bad behavior, the program might have more teeth," says Mike Colbrese, WIAA Executive Director. "So we sat down and hammered out an agreement."

In all sports in Washington, high school coaches can also coach club teams, with limits, and there's no loyalty rule for student-athletes. "We have a rule that says a student can't be given preferential treatment to miss practice with their high school team to practice for their private club team," Colbrese says. "But students can participate in more than one team during the same season."