Despite much bluster before the beginning of the session from lawmakers and Gov. Jim Justice, a House committee quietly killed a proposal to close a transfer portal for high school athletes this year.
HB 5011 would’ve reversed a law passed last year that allows high school athletes to transfer to another school once and play immediately.
In 2023, the first season of high school football since the change, nearly half of all games ended in a blowout large enough to trigger the mercy rule, according to a Mountain State Spotlight analysis.
While introduced in January, the bill was never taken up by the House Education Committee, despite having the support of both the Governor and the Speaker of the House.
Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, chair of the committee, said lawmakers worked on a solution, but were unable to get the votes within the Republican caucus.
“We did have a compromise, but it just didn’t go,” Ellington said.
That compromise would’ve allowed rising freshmen and sophomores to transfer, giving up eligibility for a year, but closed the portal for upperclassmen, according to the bill’s lead sponsor, Del. Dana Ferrell.
The Kanawha County Republican said he felt confident the votes were there to make it out of committee and the bill would’ve passed the floor.
“I think, to be fair to him (Ellington), he didn’t want to pass it out just for the Senate to squash it,” Ferrell said.
Last year, the Senate used some legislative jockeying to get the high school transfer rule change through the House.
House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, is one of the cosponsors of this year’s effort to revise the law, but spokeswoman Ann Ali said he can’t unilaterally get a bill out of committee and onto the floor.
She said there’s nothing in House Rules that would allow him to push a bill, even if he sponsors it, across the finish line.
“He’s not a bully,” she said.
While the transfer portal bill is dead, another bill coming out of the Senate, SB 813, could further change the landscape of West Virginia high school sports by making it easier for student athletes to play on other teams. This bill would allow all high school athletes to play on both school teams and travel ball teams.
The West Virginia School Athletics Coaches Association has already warned that this could lead to injuries and affect team chemistry by having players miss practice to meet travel team obligations.
“We cannot afford to have a major rule change like this one on top of the transfer portal,” Wesley Eddy, executive director of the organization, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
That bill passed the Senate 24-9 and is currently pending before the House Education Committee.