Prep BB: 'We have players who like our school and stay all four years'

By Ed Piper

"We have players who like our school and who stay all four years," said a Palomar League coach in a conversation about the proliferation of transfers among schools.

"That situation (student athletes transferring) really doesn't apply to us," he said.

The topic was a current one, basketball players transferring between two, even three schools during their four years of high school eligibility.

And this coach, calm and about to open his team room inside the cycle room on campus, was unwilling to let his still waters become troubled.

Obinna Anyanwu of Cathedral Catholic had displayed size (6'7"), mobility, and leaping ability, besides a well-proportioned physique, all on a 225-pound frame, in a 54-47 loss at unranked La Jolla the night before.

This young man, with such a promising basketball future, adds a new wrinkle to the prep sports picture: He's not a single-holdback, but a double-holdback. While already 16 years of age, he is only in the ninth grade. How can that be?

Obinna played in a club program connected to a Palomar League school and, if he had stayed in public school, he would have been likely to attend Westview. Instead, he was home-schooled, then entered the private Catholic school to begin playing his high school ball this winter.

Normally, he would have seemed to be on track to be a junior by the 2017-18 school year.

"We're like La Jolla," said the coach. "We've had transfers, but we don't normally have transfers in or out. Our students like the school and stay all four years."

Another standout at Cathedral, Thomas Notarainni, who excelled in the narrow loss to the Vikings, is also 16. Babes in the woods, these two are not.

Notarainni's sister is a standout for the Country Day girls team.

But what are you going to do? The CIF office, understandably, has gotten out of the business of denying student athletes the ability to transfer. Parents will threaten to hire a lawyer in a minute. CIF can't afford the expense and time it takes to separate the "athletic transfers" from "academic transfers" with the threat and actuality of legal action by over-zealous parents. The new rule this year is that once a valid change of residence has occurred, the athlete can play immediately. There used to be a 30-day sit-out requirement if the transfer was determined to be for "athletic reasons".