More thoughts on high school transfer rules

By Al Graning | The Natchez Democrat

Published Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Last week I did not get to finish my thoughts about high school athletes transferring. One particularly valuable transfer between two Mississippi high schools was Mount Olive’s Steve McNair, Jr. who left Mount Olive for Oak Grove.

I don’t think the loss of McNair hurt Mount Olive too badly because Friday they handled always -strong Mize 45-12.

Though I did not see any other McNairs listed in the game’s summary, both teams had Duckworths deeply involved. I have not seen the stats on the Oak Grove 41 - 24 win over Petal so I do not know what impact the young McNair had for his new team.

For Cathedral’s sake it is hoped that the loss of McNair might weaken that team, but it does not seem that it has. Mount Olive just seems to reload whether it is McNairs or Duckworths.

One other notable high school transfer I am aware of involves Madison Central quarterback Peyton Johnson. Johnson attended Jackson Academy through the ninth grade before transferring to Madison Central where he immediately stepped into the starting quarterback job as a sophomore last season.

Interestingly, the previous quarterback at Madison Central also had Natchez roots. He was the son of former Trinity athlete Lance Foster and his grandparents, Jack and Bobbie Foster are still in Natchez.

Johnson’s grandfather Charles Johnson was a sprinter at LSU and his other grandfather, Dr. Tom Purvis, played football at Southern Mississippi. The younger Foster had transferred to Madison Central from Canton Academy.

Last school year 7,429,381 youngsters participated in high school sports. 4,372,115 of those were boys, the other 3,057,266 were girls. Of the boys, 1,108,286 boys played 11-man football while there were 552,935 who played basketball.

The smallest number of boys playing one of the top ten sports were the 111,896 who swam in high school competition. The girls’ numbers show that 449,450 played basketball. Of the top ten sports for girls, 69,243 was the smallest and that was for golf.

Basketball heads the list for both boys and girls in schools participating with 17,861 fielding boys basketball teams while 17,564 had girls basketball teams. In terms of participation growth, spirit squads led the way for girls and is fast approaching swimming and diving for the number eight spot on the girls’ list.

Lacrosse is the fastest growing boys sport, but has yet to crack the top ten in number of boys participating.

Though popular in the east and down into the Carolinas, lacrosse has not made much of an impact in the deep south or the west.

Bowling also saw growth in participation for both boys and girls.

Though not yet widespread in out state, the Jackson public schools seem to have taken up the sport with pretty good intra-school competition.

While I realize that tennis and golf are mainly self-officiated sports, I do not know about bowling. Most of the other sports do require trained officials, which leaves lots of opportunity for those who want to remain involved in those sports.

Hurricane Gustav thankfully had little impact on Mississippi. Only a few high school football games were postponed by the effects of the storm, though a few games were delayed mostly due to the loss of practice time.

We can thank the Lord for diverting that hurricane, unlike Katrina. By the time this reaches print, Ike may be on the scene. Pray for the best.

And, That’s Official.

Al Graning writes a weekly column for The Democrat.