Ant Nettles thought he was in the clear. The Colorado High School Activities Association disagreed.
Last year, the basketball star transferred from Douglas County High School in Castle Rock to Eaglecrest High School in Aurora for his senior season. In doing so, Nettles — who open-enrolled at Douglas County as a freshman — moved with his family into Eaglecrest’s attendance area that summer.
Nettles believed the move should have given him full eligibility to play for the Raptors that winter. CHSAA’s Mike Krueger thought otherwise. Because Nettles moved roughly a mile closer to Douglas County, the commissioner said, the point guard would not be immediately eligible for the upcoming season, since CHSAA didn’t consider the school switch to be a requirement of his circumstance.
“I was in a dark place at the start of the season, because I thought we did everything right to be able to play,” Nettles said. “It was my senior season, the team was going to be really good. … Even though I ended up being able to play the second half of the year, I was still hurt by the decision. I thought the ruling made no sense.”
Nettles’ case illustrates the often-controversial nature of the CHSAA transfer system — one that is getting tested more with each passing year. Since the CHSAA bylaws on transfers changed in 2018, the number of student-athletes switching schools has nearly doubled. That has exposed more families, programs and schools to a system that often operates subjectively in gray areas, attempting to balance fairness to individual athletes with the greater good of Colorado high school sports.
Coaches and athletic directors expressed concerns about this balancing act as CHSAA attempts to keep student-athletes from program-jumping to powerhouse teams, while simultaneously recognizing that there are non-athletically motivated reasons to change schools. Colorado’s issues mirror a national trend seen in other high school associations and in the NCAA, and some coaches and ADs believe a one-time free transfer could be a Band-Aid solution.
The system has its critics, with some arguing that it’s too harsh in some cases and is exploited by families and programs in others. Meanwhile, Krueger and supporters believe it is an effective means of preserving the association’s purpose of educationally-based athletics — even if CHSAA lacks the investigative ability to fully police the system.
“I do think we have a very good system,” Krueger said. “I think that the changes that have been made over the last decade helped (make the transfer landscape fairer), and we’ve tweaked it and we’ve tried to get better over the years since.
“… There is no perfect system. Can people manipulate it? I’m sure they can, but we’re doing the best we can with the bylaws in place, and I would put Colorado’s system up against others across the country.”
Colorado’s transfer frenzy
When CHSAA changed its transfer rule in 2018, it set in place stricter parameters for transfers to gain immediate varsity eligibility while also opening the door for full eligibility for student-athletes who met the exception requirements. Previously, the majority of transfers were required to sit out half a season in their respective sport, regardless of circumstance.
Since the bylaws changed, transfers lose varsity eligibility for 365 days from their last day of participation, except in certain circumstances. The three primary exemptions are a bona fide family move, a hardship (defined by the bylaws as “a documented situation, condition or event which must impose a severe, non-athletic burden upon the student or their family and requires a transfer of schools”) or a broken home (e.g., a move from one parent to another in the case of a divorce).
Since that change, transfer waivers in Colorado have surged.
There were about 1,800 transfer-waiver requests in 2017-18, according to Alex Halpern, CHSAA’s legal counsel at the time. But that number nearly doubled in 2024-25 to 3,542 waiver requests, according to data provided by CHSAA. Under Krueger’s four-year tenure, the number of transfer-waiver requests increased each of the first three years, and is on pace to be around 3,250 waiver requests in 2025-26.
CHSAA’s Skyrocketing Waiver Requests
A look at Colorado’s transfer waiver request data since CHSAA commissioner Mike Krueger’s tenure began in 2022.
| School Year | Waivers | Hardship Waivers | Hardship Waivers Approved | Hardship Waivers Denied | Waivers Appealed | Appeals Overturned |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | 2,910 | 287 | 166 | 121 | 14 | 2 |
| 2023-24 | 3,110 | 317 | 181 | 136 | 8 | 0 |
| 2024-25 | 3,542 | 268 | 146 | 122 | 6 | 0 |
| 2025-26* | 2,064 | 147 | 80 | 67 | 4 | 0 |
| Total | 11,626 | 1019 | 573 | 446 | 32 | 2 |
Source: CHSAA | *The 2025-26 numbers are as of Oct. 16, 2025.
Even in a school-of-choice state — incoming freshmen can attend almost any school they desire, regardless of where they live — open enrollment is doing little to quell the spike in movement once student-athletes start their prep careers.
The transfer frenzy is similar to what’s happening at the collegiate level, where NCAA athletes won the right to unlimited transfers just a year ago.
“CHSAA’s going to have to make some tough decisions, and stand by their decisions (on transfers) or it’s just going to snowball, and I think that’s what you’re seeing in the NCAA,” Rocky Mountain High School baseball coach Scott Bullock observed. “The NCAA has thrown in the white towel on transfers. I sure hope we’re not heading that direction with CHSAA, but it feels like it could go that way with the drastic increase of transfers we’ve seen over the past five to 10 years.”
National Federation of State High School Associations CEO Karissa Niehoff said that, nationwide, transfers are “the most challenging issue for state associations right now.”
“For the last three years, the escalation in these issues has been profound,” Niehoff said. “With what’s happened at the NCAA level, that’s set up a model for high school state associations to be challenged. The state associations feel the volatility right now surrounding this issue.”
Niehoff believes that the explosion of transfers is the result of a “significant paradigm shift,” and she called the issue a “development distraction” to educationally-based athletics. NFHS does not currently track national transfer data, but gathering and analyzing that data is being considered in the near future.
“If our concept of high school sports is about performance, about pathway to scholarship, solely about wins and losses … then it’s not an education-based experience,” Niehoff said. “What people have forgotten, and this has not changed nor will it change, is that 97% of our high school student-athletes will not play in college, period.
“I think we have to hold firm on the difference between high school and collegiate experiences, and we have to put a stake in the ground that we are not college.”
One-time freebie?
With the pressure state associations are under — often from lawyers and legislators called upon by disenchanted families — Niehoff said the trend nationally is to enact a one-time free transfer. That grants a student-athlete immediate varsity eligibility at the new school, regardless of the reason for the transfer.
“Quite frankly, if state associations don’t do (a one-time free transfer), it will be done to them,” Niehoff said.
Ten states have already gone that route, according to the NFHS. That includes Florida, where unlimited transfers are allowed. Niehoff said a few other state associations are also getting pressure to allow unlimited transfers.
In Colorado, there’s been discussion among leagues and athletic directors to enact a one-time free transfer policy, but it’s yet to make it to a vote at CHSAA’s Legislative Council. Krueger said CHSAA put together a task force over the summer to examine its transfer policy, which included bringing in representatives from other state associations that have already made the change to a one-time freebie.
The result of that task force was adjustments to the current bylaws on transfers due to military reassignment, legal change of guardianship and administrative transfers. CHSAA also put together a transfer resource guide for its member schools and athletic directors, a booklet that Krueger said the association plans to expand and eventually get in the hands of parents.
But CHSAA’s big takeaway from its task force, Krueger said, was that Colorado “already has major components of a free transfer system.” For that reason, he said Colorado is not trending toward joining the states that have adopted that system.
“When we looked at what the challenges are in the transfer process, (one free transfer) doesn’t eliminate the challenges,” Krueger said. “It creates a free-for-all and a whole new set of challenges. … and now you would have so much recruiting going on, so many power teams being built. Now you have to enforce different bylaws (on recruiting).
“… New Jersey really likes their one free transfer system and thinks that it’s worked out great. But I worry when you have the one free transfer, and when you add in pressures of what’s happening with the transfer portal at the NCAA, you’ve seen some of the challenges that arise when athletes can just go wherever they want.”
Eaglecrest basketball coach Jarris Krapcha agrees with the commissioner, believing that a one-time free transfer would lead to a negative outcome in Colorado.
“The recruiting piece — the pre-enrollment contact piece — is something that CHSAA cannot police simply because they don’t have the manpower, and it’s already happening rampantly,” Krapcha said. “If you allow a one-time free transfer, it’s going to be open season on recruiting other players from other schools.”
Columbine High School athletic director Derek Holliday is among those who believe Colorado should enact a one-time free transfer system. He is on the transfer waiver committee for Jeffco Public Schools.
Holliday says his school consists of about 50% open enrollment students, and he said that athletically and/or academically, “sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.” He believes those kids should be given a free pass to transfer elsewhere with immediate varsity eligibility, regardless of their motivations.
“I believe that before your sophomore year — say July 31 — you should have a one-time free transfer,” Holliday said. “I see some kids come in, and Columbine is just not a good fit for them. I don’t think it would be a bad thing to allow those kids to transfer. And I know a lot of ADs across the state would agree with that.”
Football coach Ryan Marini at Denver South High School also agrees with the concept of a one-time free transfer, but simply because he’s exasperated with the loopholes he sees in the current system.
“At this point, we may as well give in to a one-time freebie, because the system’s broken,” Marini said. “This might be depressing to say, but I’m kind of the point where if this is what Colorado families want — if this is the exploited system they want, if they want kids not to have to face adversity in a certain program, if they think it’s unfair to their kid that they can’t jump to a state championship team with immediate eligibility, then I guess just give the people what they want.”
ThunderRidge High School head coach Jay Madden took a similar stance to Marini, although for different reasons.
The former Pomona High School football boss said “there’s too much gray area” in the system. He also questioned why students participating in activities such as band, choir, speech and Esports can transfer without penalty, but athletes cannot.
“If I transfer to Legacy High School because I love band, that’s OK, but if I transfer to Cherry Creek because I love football, that’s not OK. Why?” Madden said. “My other thought is, the transfer rules exist because we’re trying to maintain balance. But in 5A and 4A football, there is no balance. It’s the haves and the have-nots.
“I understand the competitive disadvantage that transfers (in theory) put a lot of schools in, but we’re already there in many sports even with these rules.”
‘Every scheme you can think of’
As Madden described, CHSAA’s transfer rules have not prevented families from manipulating the system or athletes from jumping to powerhouse programs.
The trend is most visible in football and basketball, where the talent disparity between the top programs and everyone else is significant. Legend High School girls hoops coach Darren Pitzner compared Colorado’s top teams to “NBA super teams: Assembled, not homegrown.”
In addition to Holliday, seven other Class 5A athletic directors questioned about bona fide moves for this story echoed the Columbine AD’s sentiment that there can be a lack of validity in the documentation families provide, and that documentation is sometimes not being thoroughly vetted by athletic directors at the new school.
For a move to count as “bona fide,” per CHSAA bylaws, an athlete’s family must make “a permanent change in the family’s legal place of domicile.” CHSAA requires families to submit documentation such as the sale of property or a rental agreement, as well as a final utility bill for the previous residence.
But athletic directors say families are finding ways around those stipulations, including the rule that a family cannot retain ownership of its previous home. Those same ADs believe families who rent, or have the means to rent an additional house or apartment on top of the home they already own, also have an advantage to try to game the system.
“I had a family who wanted to come play at Denver South propose to me, ‘We’re going to sublet my sister’s house, because it’s in your neighborhood, and we’re going to call that our apartment,’” Marini said. “And I’m like, ‘I’m not really comfortable with that.’ It’s every scheme you can think of.”
Holliday cited a specific example of a transfer he said he has intimate knowledge of, and how that student-athlete’s family circumvented the bona fide move rule.
“(That family) purchased a specific house, went to that school, sold that house after it didn’t work out, but they kept the other one over in the (original) area and then used that as the ‘new’ purchase, even though they didn’t purchase it — they already had it,” Holliday said.
“Now they’re back in their old home, the other one was just used to purchase and to rent, and the kid has full eligibility. And we all know it. Everybody around here knows it. And we’ve even brought it up (to CHSAA), but yet there’s nobody that’s providing answers.”
Regis Jesuit High School football coach Danny Filleman went so far as to say “parents are treating high school sports like the NCAA transfer portal right now, and they’ll do just about anything to get immediate (varsity) eligibility.” Niehoff agrees with the football coach and said it’s a problem on a national scale.
“(Families) are trying to exploit loopholes across the board,” Niehoff said. “When I was in Connecticut (as the state association commissioner), we had families get divorced or give up guardianship of their child so that the child could go to a school and be eligible to play. It’s just ridiculous what some of these people will try and do.
“… Families with means buy properties and don’t live in them, just to say they have a mailing address. I can remember doing some investigative work with our team in Connecticut, and literally looking into windows of houses. There was no furniture in there — they were clearly not living there.”
Questions about hardships
In Colorado, the transfers of two high-profile quarterbacks over the last few seasons illustrate the changing nature of big-time high school athletics.
In 2023, Bekkem Kritza transferred mid-fall to Boulder’s Fairview High School from Miami Central Senior High in Florida and was eventually cleared to play via a hardship waiver. Kritza played his freshman year at Fairview, his sophomore year at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in California, split his junior year between Miami Central and Fairview, and then played his senior season at Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory in Florida.
His prep career took him to four schools across three states, and he’s now on the roster at Penn State.
This fall, DJ Bordeaux also got full varsity eligibility at Legend via a hardship waiver after a similarly windy road. He played his freshman year at ThunderRidge, his sophomore season at Alpharetta High School in Georgia, and his junior season at Douglas County High School, also in Georgia, before ending up at Legend for his senior season. He is committed to Boston College.
Longtime Colorado high school football coach Ron Woitalewicz questions the legitimacy of both transfers, saying “those seem to be clear cases of athletically-motivated moves.” Bordeaux told The Post in August that he left ThunderRidge because “my dad wanted me to move out to Georgia just for a better situation,” and then he came back to Colorado because “some family stuff had happened” and his mother needed him to come back to Colorado.
“When you transfer to four schools in four years, I struggle with that,” Woitalewicz added. “So (Bordeaux) is at ThunderRidge, goes to two schools in Georgia, moves back. … I mean, define hardship there. But that’s part of the problem — it’s so subjective.”
Douglas County athletic director Diane Shuck-Gray echoed skepticism about Bordeaux’s hardship. She said that’s why she voted no on his transfer when the quarterback’s waiver was brought to the Continental League meeting. She said she trusts Krueger’s judgement, but not the system itself, noting that “families have figured it out and how to beat it.”
“I don’t think we’re hitting the mark with (hardship waivers) right now,” said Shuck-Gray, who also serves on CHSAA’s sportsmanship and equity committee. “When you’re transferring after you’ve started high school, especially multiple times, is where my red flags go up. You’re shopping. We’ve got to get back to equal and fair, and start protecting those other schools (that don’t get transfers).
“So we’ve got to tighten it down. At some point, we may just need to go to: If you change schools in the state of Colorado, no matter what, there’s no hardship waiver except in the case of a military reassignment.”
Because of the gray area that comes with hardships, Krueger called it the most challenging type of waiver that lands on his desk. The commissioner also acknowledged that the broken home bylaw is “another area where people can take advantage.” More than a dozen coaches and administrators interviewed for this story said that using divorce as a means to gain an athlete’s immediate varsity eligibility has become a popular loophole.
As Shuck-Gray explained, parents are willing to get a finalized dissolution of marriage by a court order to get clearance from that specific bylaw — even if those parents are actually still together as a couple. There is also no set time frame on the broken home exception, so a couple can have been divorced for years and then use the bylaw much later on to gain their child’s eligibility.
“I get frustrated when we have athletic directors bring forward waivers over a broken home, claiming that kid moved from mom’s house to dad’s house,” Shuck-Gray said. “We found the family (recently) that, for lack of better terms, faked a divorce and they had the means to have the papers drawn up. It looks legit. And then come to find out it wasn’t legit. And it was all to be able to play. It’s sending the wrong message to people, because at what price do you want to win?”
The transfer system process
When a student-athlete transfers, their waiver goes through a specific process that involves assessment from both the sending and receiving athletic directors, a vote by the receiving league (in the case of hardship and broken home waivers) and ultimately a decision by Krueger himself.
Bona fide move waivers, with proper documentation, skip a league vote and go straight to Krueger’s desk. He sometimes has help reviewing waivers from his assistant commissioners, especially in the summer when CHSAA is getting hundreds of waivers daily.
Krueger, who emphasized that CHSAA is not an investigative agency, said the information he receives for waivers is “based on the integrity of the membership.”
While Krueger will occasionally check addresses for transfers to confirm their new address is in the attendance area of their new school, he relies on athletic directors to provide him with details about each transfer. The sending and receiving ADs fill out an online form about the transfer. The form for the receiving AD must contain documentation related to a bona fide move, hardship or broken home claim. The sending AD must indicate what sports the student participated in, their date of last participation in each sport, and the AD must answer four questions.
1) Do you consider this transfer athletically motivated? 2) Do you have any concerns about any disciplinary issues? 3) Was the student academically eligible? 4) Do you agree with all the information provided in the receiving school’s waiver?
Krueger said a yes to the question about athletic motivation is a “red flag that will sometimes key me in (on concerns).” It’s also a red flag for when a hardship/broken home waiver gets to a league vote, Boulder athletic director Ryan Bishop said.
“When I see it’s checked as athletically motivated, that waiver goes no further on my desk until I know that the ADs have talked to each other about the concerns,” Krueger said.
Six of the ADs interviewed for this story said that marking a transfer as athletically motivated sometimes isn’t worth the blowback they receive from the family, even if the AD thinks that’s the case. Five of the coaches The Post spoke with believe there are times when ADs have a “buddy system” when it comes to the league vote and voting transfers through as a quid pro quo.
Jason Lind, whose football son transferred from Regis Jesuit in Aurora to Lutheran High School in Parker, said athletic directors are given too much power with “athletically motivated” determinations.
“I think a lot comes down to does the school like you, and is there any reason for them to want to try and punish you (for transferring),” Lind said. “Otherwise, if you have a great relationship with your athletic director, I get the sense you have a better chance.
“It’s almost like you have to get their approval ahead of time, and it feels like there’s sometimes no rhyme or reason for why some kids (get that box checked by their AD) and some don’t.”
After a league votes on a hardship or broken-home waiver, it goes to Krueger for review. In the case of Kritza and Bordeaux, both of their hardship waivers were passed by their respective leagues in a vote before Krueger signed off.
While Krueger sometimes disagrees with a league vote, he said he aligns with their decisions more than 90% of the time.
“The league vote is not a determining vote — it’s a communication vote to CHSAA on where we are, because we have that rich, robust discussion,” Fossil Ridge High School athletic director David Walck said. “Considering how much the league discusses each hardship waiver, it’s a big reason why I believe this is by far the most robust process that we’ve ever had.”
Bishop echoed that sentiment, noting that “there’s always gray area, but that gray area lives within the ADs.”
“I didn’t trust the process (as a coach) just because I didn’t know it,” Bishop said. “Now, as an AD, I’m trying to teach my coaches, ‘Just trust the process.’ It’s a lot better than we think it is.”
Schools can appeal waiver decisions on behalf of the student-athlete. CHSAA’s central appeals committee consists of roughly 15 people, mainly former athletic administrators. Three of those committee members are selected to hear an appeal, which occurs virtually. Krueger said the central appeals committee is independent of his office.
Based on CHSAA’s transfer waiver statistics since 2022-23, the chances of getting a decision overturned on appeal are slim. Of 11,626 waiver rulings since Krueger became commissioner, 32 were appealed to the central appeals committee, according to data provided by CHSAA. Just two of those decisions (6%) were overturned.
The perception problem
Nettles was one of those who appealed his decision.
He lost his bid for immediate varsity eligibility. Still, Nettles and the Raptors won in the end. He was granted restricted varsity eligibility, which allows seniors to play in the regular season because it’s their final year. Then he became eligible for the playoffs because his 365-day clock expired due to Douglas County losing early in the playoffs the year before. With his presence on the floor, Eaglecrest ran the table all the way to the Class 6A title.
While athletes and their families are bound to be dissatisfied when CHSAA rules against their child, Krueger maintains that “Colorado‘s transfer system is strong and serves our schools very well.”
“When a decision doesn’t align with what a family had hoped for, it’s understandable that frustration often shifts toward the process itself,” Krueger said. “But an outcome that wasn’t desired does not mean the system is unfair or broken.”
Many waiver decisions don’t end up as rosy as Nettles’ did. And while CHSAA views transfers as an evolving issue that will continue to get attention whether Krueger approves or denies them, it’s clear that the current system has a perception issue among coaches, parents and ADs.
“I think the biggest problem with the overall aspect of it is just that from what I hear from talking with (stakeholders around the state) is I don’t think everyone feels like all schools are playing by the same set of rules,” said Daniel Mohrmann, the editor of Colorado Preps. “I think the CHSAA office does its best to make sure that’s the case.
“… But whatever road the membership wants to go down in the future with this issue, they need to do their best to 1) ensure that every school has a level playing field in the situation, and 2) that it also feels that way. Because I don’t know that either of those things are true right now.”
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.