As you walk in to the Binks Rawling Gymnasium during a women’s varsity basketball game you will see an energetic team, a sea of purple and white fans in the bleachers and four players sitting on the bench in their warm ups. Sophomore Ny’Dajah Jackson and juniors Ameela Li, Kiaria Pickeral-Dennis and Kelea Pickeral-Dennis could not play this season due to transfer rules and regulations.

The North Coast Section (NCS) has a specific procedure for transfer student athletes. Every student who transfers after his or her freshman year is required to go through lots of NCS paperwork.

“The North Coast Section is our governing body and we have to abide by their rules and there’s a lot of rules when it comes to transfers,” athletic director Jeff Peters said. “Whenever a kid transfers there’s a 206 form or a 207 form that applies and either one applies to transfers after their freshman year.”

Peters said that NCS wants to know if the transfer after freshman year is academically motivated or athletically motivated. If it is for sports, it is illegal.

“We do all the transfers where we do everything, we abide by all the rules because we do not want them to come down hard on us for any reason,” Peters said. We’re honest. The whole point is to be clear, so that’s what we did.”

Peters said that they did all the paperwork and he did a lot of background interviewing on the four girls who all transferred in to Millennium High School. NCS allows Millennium students to play on Piedmont teams.

“The big issue was that we had four girls come in at the same time for one sport,” Peters said. “When you think about how small a basketball program is, usually there’s 12 girls on a team and four girls, that’s a third of the team, so that looks a little awkward just right off the bat.”

Peters said that Gil Lemmon, who’s the commissioner of the NCS noticed right away when they all came in at the same time and so he had to do a whole process of paperwork and interviewing the kids and talking to their parents if necessary.

“Through all of that Gil Lemmon’s found and we found too that all four girls played on the same club team in the summer so they knew each other,” Peters said.

Peters said that Lemmon does a thorough investigation of all the information, and he found that the move here was not academically motivated, it was based on sports.

Each sport has a sit out period for transfer athletes, which is a date that they can return to playing their sport.

“They were not allowed to play the entire season and when they [came] in, they [got] a sit out period,” Peters said.

Peters said that although they could not play in games they could still practice with the basketball team and that a couple of them played basketball and track.

“For basketball they weren’t allowed to play at all and for track they get [a sit out period] so if they participate in that sport they could practice but they couldn’t play until April 7th,” Peters said.

Jackson is one of the four varsity basketball athletes who were not able to play because she transferred.

“I didn’t play this season because they thought I got recruited and they denied my request,” Jackson said. “It sucks I really wanted to play but I couldn’t.”

Jackson said that although she was not allowed to play she is still glad she transferred.

“I wanted a better environment to work in,” Jackson said.

Teammate Junior Madie Eidam said that if the four girls were able to play it definitely would have helped their overall record this season.

“They’re all really great well-rounded players,” Eidam said. “Having them play would have only benefitted us.”

Like Eidam, teammate junior Clare Keating said that if these four girls were able to play the season might have gone differently.

“All of the players who were eligible to play this year were returners from last year, but the issue is we only had seven players who could be on the court because Kelsey went to Austria,” Keating said.

Eidam said that her teammates had energy and enthusiasm she has never seen before in anyone else she has ever played with and it is frustrating that they could not play because they have such a love for the game of basketball.

“They may have not been able to get on the court but they were the most amazing supporters on the bench,” Eidam said. “Kelea’s the loudest girl in any gym we go to.”

Keating said that having four players who were ineligible to play was hard on their team.

“They work extremely hard in practice, but were only giving the opportunity to support the team through cheering,” Keating said.

Keating said that NCS playoffs could have been more successful with the four girls because the team was limited on their players because there were a few injuries.

Jackson said that she did not know she was not going to be able to play when she transferred and if she had known she was not going to be able to play she still would have transferred anyways.

Peters said that the kids who transferred in on the men’s basketball team were also looked in to by Lemmon.

“There was a difference in that because those kids didn’t all know each other, they came from different schools, three of the four girls came from the same school and the idea that they all played together during the summer all that stuff Gil looks at and more,” Peters said.

Peters said that Senior Atu Ohuafi is another student athlete who had to follow a sit out period.

“Tutu in football got the [sit out period], but he got [the sit out period] in football, basketball and track because he played those three sports prior to this year,” Peters said.

Peters said that NCS found no fault with the school, with the athletic directors or with the basketball program.