The girls high school basketball season is just over a week away, and the status of the 13 transfers to UIL charter school Oak Cliff Faith Family is still a mystery.
The district executive committee hasn’t met to determine the players’ varsity eligibility. Also, the UIL state executive committee won’t meet until next Wednesday to determine the punishments for Faith Family, head coach Andrea Robinson and assistant coaches Kadi Creel and Jordan Jones.
The 13-5A DEC found the school and the coaches guilty of recruiting violations, a lack of transparency and withholding information regarding the transfers. Suspensions for the coaches and a playoff ban for the school are possibilities.
But if any or all of the transfers are ruled ineligible for transferring for athletic purposes, they could still end up playing varsity basketball this season, potentially at their previous schools or private schools.
UIL rules state that a student who transfers for an impermissible reason is still eligible at the school where varsity eligibility was first established, without the need of a waiver. A student must reenroll in the school within 30 days of being found ineligible at the transfer school.
Nine of the Faith Family transfers have been named, and eight of them came from UIL schools. Five-star junior forward Amari Byles and four-star junior combo guard Amayah “Sunshine” Garcia came from DeSoto, four-star senior forward Joy Egbuna was formerly at Mansfield Lake Ridge, sisters Milania, Gianna, Natalia and Nadia Jordan transferred from Southlake Carroll and freshman Kelenna Ozumba had been in Allen ISD and would have played for Allen High School.
Coaches from those schools did not respond to email messages seeking comment. The district executive committee said there were four total transfers from DeSoto, but two weren’t named.
One Faith Family transfer who didn’t come from a UIL school is four-star sophomore point guard Finley Chastain, who attended national champion Montverde Academy in Florida after middle school in Prosper. Her father, Shawn, did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.
For players to be eligible to play for a TAPPS school this season, they must withdraw from their previous school, enroll in the new school and be in attendance before or on Tuesday, the date of the transfer deadline for the winter season.
But there is a different deadline for seniors, which has already passed. For a senior to transfer to a TAPPS school now and be able to play this basketball season, they would have to appeal to the executive board by completing the senior transfer appeal form.
TAPPS also has transfer rules that would force a new student to sit out varsity competition for one year if it was found that during the previous 12 months, the coach at their new school trained them at their previous school or on an AAU, select or club team, or provided individual or group instruction to the student.
Separately, the UIL was asked if the state executive committee were to ban Faith Family from competing in the playoffs this season and/or suspend their coaches, would the girls who transferred to Faith Family have the option to go back to their former school and compete if the DEC hasn’t ruled on their eligibility yet.
The UIL declined to answer, saying “we prefer not to speculate on the outcomes of individual student eligibility cases before they are thoroughly reviewed and all the facts are known.”
UIL girls teams can start playing games on Nov. 1.
One of the harshest penalties the UIL gave individual athletes occurred in 2022, when 11 freshmen football players at San Marcos were ruled ineligible to participate in varsity football for three years after it was determined they transferred for athletic purposes, violating the league’s recruiting rules. The group of players, who played youth football together for a team coached by a San Marcos ISD employee, were ruled to have coordinated to enroll in the district to play together.
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