MONTGOMERY — Alarm over athlete movement between Alabama high schools is louder than ever, but the Alabama High School Athletic Association says the numbers tell a calmer story.
“The perception is not reality,” said Kim Vickers, the AHSAA’s associate executive director and eligibility coordinator. “The perception is that schools are recruiting players, but the reality is that the parents are shopping them around.”
Speaking at a roundtable on high school sports issues at the AHSAA’s Montgomery headquarters, Vickers said athletic transfers statewide are expected to land in the upper 3,000s this school year — right in line with historical norms. The association counted 3,659 transfers in 2016 when it began compiling data from member schools, and the figure has stayed in roughly the same band since.
“The transfer numbers have not changed dramatically since 2016,” Vickers said. What has changed, she argued, is visibility: players now announce their moves on social media, imitating college athletes entering the transfer portal.
Parents, not poachers
Vickers said most transfer requests stem from family decisions rather than school recruitment — a player unhappy with his position, drawn to better facilities, or chasing a perceived scholarship path. “If you’re good enough, you’ll get a college scholarship no matter where you are,” she said. She also noted the association sees more transfers to public schools students aren’t zoned for than to private schools, and that families today move more easily than in decades past.
Enforcement without subpoena power
Both Vickers and new executive director Heath Harmon acknowledged that improper enticement does occur and can be difficult to prove. The AHSAA relies on five retired investigators working as independent contractors and on referrals from member schools; it has no subpoena power to build legal cases.
Harmon, who has made rule enforcement his signature message since taking over, said the association will enforce its rules “even if it is unpopular,” and repeated that Alabama will not rush to allow name, image and likeness benefits for high school athletes, unlike the 39 states that have done so in some form.
“We are not going to drag our feet, but we’re not going to be reckless,” Harmon said of the NIL question. “Right now, our amateur rule is you can’t benefit financially from your performance.”