CIF allows participation at college ID camps

The CIF San Diego Section prohibition against tryouts or practices with outside teams during a sport’s CIF season was intended to prevent abuses, not to prevent high school student-athletes from attending a legitimate college session to identify potential future athletes for that college team. On Oct. 23, the CIF Board of Managers voted unanimously to make an allowance for participation at college identification camps.

“We feel this is moving forward in the right direction,” said CIF assistant commissioner John Labeda.

CIF Rule 600 in part reflects the state CIF prohibition against student-athletes playing for club teams during that sport’s CIF season. (Players on a high school team may compete as unaffiliated individuals in a tournament or meet.) At the state level Rule 600 predates the 1960 formation of the CIF San Diego Section. The San Diego Section has implemented more stringent restrictions, including a prohibition against in-season practices or training and an out-of-season period prohibiting athletic-oriented contact between players and their high school coach.

Since 2003 the San Diego Section’s version of Rule 600 has prohibited practices or training with a club during a sport’s CIF season, although exceptions for gymnastics, swimming, and diving were allowed due to the specialized nature of training. The in-season rules for CIF team practices include a maximum number of hours and a prohibition against Sunday practice, and the purpose of the prohibition against training or practice was to prevent club teams from being used as a shield against illegal team practices. The rule was not meant to prohibit group tryouts for a specific college coach.

“We’re the only section in California that doesn’t allow our kids to do this,” said CIF commissioner Jerry Schniepp. “Part of the reason is our section plays soccer at a different time than other sections.”

In the San Diego Section boys soccer and girls soccer are winter sports. At the college level men’s soccer and women’s soccer are played in the fall. In most CIF sections, and in many other states, soccer is a fall or spring sport.

Labeda is already aware of college identification camps for soccer at Cal State University Monterey Bay and the University of California, San Diego. The exemption allows a student-athlete to attend up to two college ID camps per season. “In most cases that’s really all they need,” Labeda said.

The ID camps must be conducted by the college coach. “It can’t be a group of travel coaches who are simply renting a facility and calling it a college ID camp,” Labeda said.

A college ID camp is defined as a sport-specific camp held on a college campus under the direction of a college coach. Student-athletes must receive permission from the school’s head coach for the sport and from the school’s athletic director or administrator prior to attending the camp, and an ID camp participation form must be completed, approved, and signed by the CIF prior to attendance at he camp.

“There are a couple of steps. The coach has to approve it, the school administration has to approve it, and the CIF has to approve it,” Schniepp said.

A college ID camp flyer or a link to the camp Website must be submitted to the CIF office along with the completed ID camp participation form. The CIF section office will list approved college ID camps on its cifsds.org website for reference purposes.

The CIF by-laws already had exemption provisions for participation in an Olympic Development Program as well as tryouts for the Olympic Games, Pan-American Games, or U.S. Paralympic Games.

“I see this moving into other sports,” said San Diego Unified School District director of physical education, health, and athletics Bruce Ward, who is the SDUSD representative on the CIF Board of Managers. “We need to continue to look at the Rule 600 specific things.”

The changes to Rule 600 also added that the first offense penalty for a player who participates in outside tryouts or practices during a sport’s CIF season is ineligibility for CIF contests equal to twice the number of outside practices or tryouts. Rule 600 had already stated that the first offense penalty for an athlete who participated in outside competition was ineligibility for CIF contests equal to twice the number of outside competitions (a second offense causes ineligibility for CIF competition for 365 days). Attendance at more than two college ID camps during a season is considered a violation, so if a student-athlete attends a third college ID camp he or she must sit out for the ensuing two games. Participation in a college ID camp without school and CIF approval is also subject to that penalty.