Should High School Athletes be Allowed to Switch Teams to Serve Out Penalties?

Should Menomonee Falls High School athletes who are serving a school-imposed penalty for violations of the athletic code be allowed to switch to a new sport during the penalty phase?

It happens now occasionally — for example, an athlete who focuses on a winter sport and incurs a penalty goes out for a sport in the spring just to serve the penalty — and some officials say it causes tension with behaving students who get bumped from spots on teams and with teammates who didn’t do anything wrong.

“It’s not fair,” said School Board member David Noshay. “It gives them (the offending student) an out. It’s divisive to the team. In the past, other kids felt betrayed, and that’s not OK.”

“The legal system has an easy out too,” countered soon-to-retire Athletic Director Dave Petroff. “It’s called plea bargaining. They are not getting off scot free. They are serving the penalty in the other sport.”

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The sometimes pointed, albeit still respectful, debate occurred at a board working session on the new athletic code handbook Monday. And at the end of it, the board agreed to decide the issue in 2013.

Officials decided to alert the community — and did — during the regular board meeting that they will consider whether to change the practice at next year’s review of the handbook, which will undergo annual review from now on.

“We are considering the possibility of doing away with the provision in the athletic handbook that … allows students with an unfulfilled penalty in their main sport to spend their penalty in a sport they have not participated in before in order to take care of that penalty before the main sport starts again,” said School Board member Lori Blodorn.

Superintendent Pat Greco and other officials said the practice happens in other districts and has happened for years occasionally in the Falls. She described the practice as “going out for a sport for the first time to work off a penalty.”

Noshay wasn’t convinced. Whether others do it or it’s been done for years, isn’t the point, he said. He said the point is that “they are losing a life lesson.”

Incoming Athletic Director Ryan Anderson didn’t take a firm stance but said the involvement in another sport is hardly taking it easy. The practice tends to happen when students in one sport, say basketball, switch to another, such as track or cross country. “If they want to serve their penalty by busting laps, so be it,” he said.

Officials agreed that coaches tend to allow the practice when the players are good athletes and the new team benefits from their inclusion.

Board member Scott Ternes said his biggest concern was establishing consistency.

“Right now, there’s a perception of inconsistency,” he said. “We sit in the stands and hear it. ‘My kid, your kid. This kid got off, this one didn’t. This kid so and so…’”

But Noshay said if the decision is left in the hands of the athletic director — as it is now – it shouldn’t result in “rubber stamp” permission for everyone who seeks the change.

Anderson said the decisions are monitored and discussed by both coaches and the athletic director.