Ron Kantowski on how Nevadans care more about basketball than NIAA’s residency rules for players

Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

I don't have kids and I don't play a musical instrument, but for the sake of this story, let's say I had a teenage son who played the tuba. And that the marching band at the local high school had too many woodwinds and not enough brass. And one time, at band camp, the music teacher admitted to the drum major that he didn't know a symphony from a minuet but hey, the pay was good, the hours weren't bad, and he kind of dug the fuzzy hats.

Knowing this, and how much Grambling or Florida A&M charges for out-of-state tuition, I might consider pulling my tuba-playing son out of the local high school and enrolling him across town at John Philip Sousa Vocational.

Outside of the piccolo players, who would be overshadowed by my tuba-playing son's oompah-oompah, who would care?

The answer is no one.

It's too bad, then, that high school basketball teams play for state championship banners instead of polite applause from parents and relatives.

If that were the case, the Durango boys and girls basketball teams probably would still be playing for a berth in next week's state tournaments at the Orleans. And the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association could revert to administering high school athletics instead of policing them.

The NIAA last Friday essentially banned Durango's boys and girls from the postseason for using ineligible players. Two players from the girls team and one from the boys were ruled in violation of state residency requirements, i.e., that a parent or guardian must reside in the zone in which their kids play ball - er, go to school.

I was going to say that it had to be a bitter pill for the Durango girls to swallow, considering they were ranked third in the state. But I'm sure there were players on the boys team who were looking forward to the postseason, too.

If I've said it once I've said it just about every year at playoff time when somebody snitches on somebody else for bending the rules into the shape of a pretzel:

This is what happens to kids when grown-ups get too involved in their business.

For the record, Durango was charged with a "zone variance" violation, which is just an official-sounding synonym for recruiting. I'm not here to say whether Durango is or isn't guilty. I am here to say it isn't the only school in town being charged with recruiting - er, variancing its zone.

"I don't know if it's rampant right now," said Bill Garis, the Clark County School District director of athletics who works in concert with the NIAA in a futile battle to maintain a level playing field. "But I am sure it is happening a lot more frequently than what we would like. Probably more than we will ever know."

So when it comes to due diligence, the district does what it can, which isn't much. It checks on addresses that players give to confirm they are in the proper zone. But beyond that, the administrators have to hope that the threat of punitive action, such as Durango's playoff ban, is a deterrent to players crisscrossing town like checkers on a board.

"It would be nice to have a (enforcement) staff like the NCAA," Garis said. "We do review addresses and if we see something (suspicious), we follow up. But nine times out of 10, it's somebody reporting out of our office."

Recruiting has become such a nonstop headache that some federations have just thrown up their hands and adopted an open enrollment policy under which students are allowed to attend the school of their choice.

It even seemed to be working in Arizona until nine Mexicans "wandered" across the border to play baseball at Tucson's Amphitheater High. Minnesota also went to open enrollment but soon will vote on reverting to its old residence requirements after some schools abused the system to build all-star teams.

"I've studied it at the state level and wouldn't be in favor of something like that," Garis said. "It's a mess."

Yet, he said he expected the Durango situation to spawn renewed discussion about a one-time transfer rule that may or may not apply directly to athletics.

"I'm not necessarily advocating that," Garis said, adding that he expected the issue to come before the NIAA board and that adopting a one-time transfer rule on a pilot basis might be the best approach.

Or second-best approach.

"In an ideal world," he said, "we'd just quit cheating."