Doyel: IHSAA ruling on Roncalli volleyball player rejects logic, compassion, IHSAA itself
INDIANAPOLIS – Hear the one about the IHSAA and the kid with a sick grandmother? You’ll get a kick out of this one. A high school wrestler at one end of the state transferred to a school at the other end – six hours away from his friends, family, even his father who was his high school wrestling coach – and was told in so many words by the IHSAA:
You didn’t transfer to care for your grandmother. You transferred because of sports. You’re ineligible.
Hilarious, right? The IHSAA has jokes for days.
Hear the one about the IHSAA and the note from the hospital?
A single mother in Indianapolis worked at a hospital that changed her hours during the height of the covid pandemic. Now she was reporting to work before sunrise, too early to get her son to school at Avon – no busing available for this particular kid – so she enrolled him at nearby Ben Davis. With help from other family members, she could manage that. Even got a note from the hospital to show everything was on the up-and-up.
The IHSAA told her: No. We know better than hospital administrators.
The IHSAA also knows better than the psychologist who diagnosed a kid with anxiety and panic attacks caused by bullying at his current school. The kid transferred, citing the diagnosis as a factor. The IHSAA said: No. We know better. You transferred for sports, so you’re ineligible.
Hear the one about the kid with suicidal thoughts? The IHSAA told parents of that kid that his depression wasn’t a valid reason to switch schools. He can transfer, sure. He just can’t play sports at his new school.
No, you’re right, it’s not funny. None of this is funny. But you need to see it all, to see the pattern of behavior coming from IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig’s office on 91st and Meridian Street, to understand what happened this week to a volleyball player at Roncalli. And because it happened to this volleyball player, it happened to every volleyball player in the state.
In this case the IHSAA knows better than the American Volleyball Coaches Association, the NCAA, the Olympic Games, several other state high school athletic associations and even the National Federation of High School sports, which “writes playing rules for high school sports and provides guidance on a multitude of national issues” and is based in Indianapolis, less than 12 miles from the IHSAA.
The IHSAA is a member of the NFHS.
But the IHSAA went against NFHS guidance by deciding this kid from Roncalli, and therefore every volleyball player in the state, has to pick between volleyball (six players vs. six players, played on hardcourt) and beach volleyball (two-on-two, played on sand). A kid playing both sports, if the seasons overlap? That counts as two years of eligibility.
Hey, stop laughing.
This is serious.
The IHSAA is the joke.
Absurd IHSAA ruling against Roncalli kid
Her name is Logan Bell. She’s a junior at Roncalli, and she plans to play volleyball in college. Hardcourt volleyball and beach volleyball. It’s two different sports, according to the NCAA, and because she’s committed to play both at Oregon, playing both now is best for her future.
Seems like the IHSAA would want what’s best for a kid’s future.
Insider Brian Haenchen: Are beach volleyball and indoor the same? IHSAA says yes.
Aware of IHSAA rules against playing the same sport at the same time for your team and club, Bell and her parents asked the IHSAA for relief, noting that volleyball and beach volleyball are different sports with largely different seasons. The IHSAA said: No.
The IHSAA said: Volleyball and beach volleyball are the same sport.
The Bell family said: But the NCAA says they’re two different sports. So do the Olympic Games. So do other state associations, the AVCA, and the NFHS – and the IHSAA is part of the NFHS.
The IHSAA said: Yes, but we know better than the NCAA. We know better than the Olympics. We know better than the NFHS. We know more about volleyball than the best volleyball coaches in the country.
Who’s running the IHSAA, anyway? The smartest people on earth? They know better than hospital administrators and psychiatrists over there. They know better than mothers, fathers, grandfathers. They know more about depression and suicidal ideation than psychologists.
The people running the IHSAA are geniuses.
Or they’re mean-spirited bullies who don’t care very much about the actual kids in their care.
Doyel on IHSAA in 2021: 'Broken' IHSAA transfer system leads to bullying
Doyel, six months later: IHSAA fixes its transfer process by making it worse
IHSAA just making it up as it goes
Thing is, the IHSAA doesn’t even sanction beach volleyball. According to the IHSAA, it’s not an IHSAA sport. How can a kid playing beach volleyball lose a year of eligibility on her high school volleyball team, when beach volleyball doesn’t even count in the IHSAA?
From our high school insider Brian Haenchen’s news story on this saga:
“In his response to the request, IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig wrote volleyball is sanctioned by the IHSAA, regardless of the playing surface, comparing it to a high school basketball player who wishes to play in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament in-season. ‘Because IHSAA by-laws are sports specific, and volleyball is a sport sanctioned by the IHSAA,’ Neidig continued, ‘Logan will not be able to participate in beach volleyball and on her school’s volleyball team during the contest season without it impacting her athletic eligibility.’”
Well that’s ludicrous, as the Bell family responded.
"This is quite unlike 3-on-3 basketball, which the NFHS does not recognize as a sport, nor does any of the 51 member schools surveyed in the United States," they wrote.
And they wrote:
"The interpretation is unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious, not in accord with the IHSAA's own bylaws.”
Now, that’s interesting.
And it’s true. See, in its rulebook, a 173-page document that can get complicated, the IHSAA provides Q-and-A parts to make sense of the rules. To dumb it down for us commoners, so to speak. Get a load of this part, taken directly from the “IHSAA 2022-23 By-Laws & Articles of Incorporation:”
Q. 15-4 If a student participates in a league or tournament of a sport not recognized by IHSAA, does the student become ineligible in other sports?
A. No. The rules of the IHSAA are generally sports specific, and participation in a sport not recognized by the IHSAA does not impact a student’s eligibility to participate in a sport recognized by the IHSAA.
Please, please, read that again. No, I’m not talking to you.
I’m talking to IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig.
These are your rules, Neidig. We get it, you know more than psychologists and hospitals, more than mothers and fathers, more than the NFHS.
Turns out, the IHSAA knows more than the IHSAA.
So do the rest of us.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA volleyball ruling refutes NCAA, Olympic Games, NFHS – even IHSAA
