by Mark Tuufuli // Staff Writer
We’ve all heard the news that Carson High School’s football program is receiving a new head coach, and even athletes from out of the city heard the word and decided to transfer to CHS to play.
The transfer could provide a better opportunity for athletes to make it to college on either an academic scholarship or an athletic scholarship. In many ways football for these young student-athletes is a way out; it’s their dream or an optimistic future they want to pursue.
But not everything always goes as planned when transferring schools for either academic reasons or athletic purposes; there are specific rules that apply.
CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) is the governing body of high school athletics for public schools in the city of Los Angeles and some surrounding communities. CIF rules and violations have decided to cut some of the transfers short this season.
For example, if the athletes have transferred more than once to a school in the same district, it would be a violation of their rules. Or, if the athlete is living in another city but is trying to attend and play for a school that is out of that city’s district, this would be a violation to CIF’s rules. Unfortunately, such cases were common for many of the young athletes at CHS.
The CHS football program had over 17 transfers in all. Almost half of them sat out for 5 games or the whole football season and most of them were incoming juniors. CHS senior Sultan Moala was one of the players forced to participate in the sit out period.
“I didn’t know I was going to be sitting out; I was expecting to play. But I took this as a humbling experience, to get right with school and become a better student in the classroom. Now that I am finally cleared to play, my role is to contribute to the team as much as I can for the short amount of time that I have and to also to be a vocal leader on the field,” said Sultan.
Another CHS senior, who is also a highly recruited football player and has over 10 Division 1 offers to 4 year universities, was also a player that had to sit out for 5 preseason games: Denaylan Fuimoano.
“Since this is my senior season and my last year playing football in high school, it did hurt finding out [that] I was on a sit out period, but it makes you realize how much you really love football. It made you look at the team’s effort on the field from a different perspective. Since the transfers are now cleared to play, we can show everyone our full potential, and show them Carson football.”
As the transfers are now being cleared to play, athletes begin to lock in.The football program now heads into the season with a 4-3 record, and with the athletes finally being able to play, they have the mindset to change their team’s record.