CBS Sportsline reports today on a rare and interesting event -- the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a sports-related issue.
In this case, Brentwood Academy wanted to be able to essentially recruit middle-schoolers to its football team. The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association passed a rule forbidding Brentwood from doing so. Brentwood sued, arguing that the TSSAA's rule abridged it's right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Brentwoods F.A. argument and ruled in favor of the Association, of which Brentwood is a voluntary member. What I am wondering is how this ruling will affect the ability of schools like Oak Hill Academy to recruit athletes from other states to attend their school.
In recent years, quite a few basketball players from Kentucky, i.e. O.J. Mayo and Rajon Rondo just to name a couple of recent ones, have moved to basketball prep schools like Oak Hill Academy. Consequently, our in-state talent has been way down lately, as you can see by our recent sorry performance in the Kentucky/Indiana high school all-star games.
So that leads me to wonder -- will high school associations like the TSSAA now be allowed to forbid individual recruiting of talent in Kentucky, or for that matter, any other state schools? The big basketball powerhouse schools like Oak Hill must surely be recruiting talent from around the country, simliar to Brentwood.
Suppose the Kentucky High School Athletic Association decided to forbid schools like Oak Hill from recruiting individual athletes. Oak Hill isn't a member of the KHSAA, so there is a difference there, but it could require member schools to forbid contacts with middle-schoolers by institutions such as Oak Hill.
I guess what I am wondering is, with all this emphasis in the Commonwealth about retaining our best and brightest, should that extend to our athletes as well? And if so, would it even be remotely enforceable?
