The chase for state championships has led to an epidemic of transfers in this state, and sports columnist Wade Evanson doesn't like what he sees. (Jaime Valdez/Portland Tribune)

The transfer portal is open. No, not the NCAA’s official window for student-athletes to relocate to a more lucrative/advantageous situation, but rather the unofficial one that has high schoolers doing the same in the interest of…well…I’m not exactly sure?

This is a delicate topic for a number of reasons, but one that – while not entirely new – has become exponentially more prevalent in recent years.

Players from area schools are leaving their school and often their district seeking greener pastures, and while there are rules prohibiting such, little is being done to curb what’s become the new norm.

I’ll be honest, I don’t like it.

If you move, you move. You can’t stop someone from picking up and moving out, be it for practical reasons or not. But what you can do is govern, and in many cases simply enforce the rules set forth with that governance in mind.

There doesn’t seem to be much of that going on, and therein lies the problem.

Circumventing the transfer rules isn’t new, for even in the “olden days” there were tales of fabrications in the interests of getting player-A to school-B.

There was the mystery address, aunt and uncle, and/or friend or even simply a mailbox that would place player-A in the district he or she so desired. But examples of such were few and far between compared to what now annually feels like the running of the bulls.

Now is that time.

With summer league basketball underway, along with summer workouts for football, soccer and volleyball on the horizon, new players now make up new teams, and for the first time since the end of the 2024-25 school year, outsiders are getting a glimpse of what next year’s high school squads will look like come September and beyond. And while there’s talent to be found throughout Oregon, many of the state’s best won’t be playing against, but rather with one another as a part of a team constructed not over time, but rather as the result of little more than a desire to do so.

When I stated earlier that this is a delicate topic, I did so due to the sensitivity that comes with the people involved – the kids.

While I could point to what seems like countless examples of prep mercenaries leading teams to league or state titles, I won’t. Nor will I single-out the coaches and/or programs that have not only embraced, but have been more than willing participants.

I’ve no interest in playing the “gotcha” or blame game, and I have even less interest in pointing fingers and rendering verdicts on cases for which I lack all of the necessary information to do so.

Sometimes people simply move.

Other times academic motivations are at play.

That’s life, and I’d be a fool not to acknowledge such pertaining to transfers in general.

But beyond the necessary lies a mountain of unnecessary reasons kids are jumping from one school to the next like NBA superstars chasing championship rings.

Winning. Coaching. Playing time. All things you hear regarding the departure and subsequent arrival of those seeking more of any or all of the aforementioned.

And that’s great for them, but what about everyone they left behind?

We live in a time defined by that very word’s last two letters.

Me-first has not only become popular, but championed by a sect of society that’s somehow made selfishness a virtue.

I’m not going to waste your time with what I feel are countless examples of such, but will tell you that in a world so concerned with the individual, there seems to be little to no concern for the individuals who will suffer in the wake of making one happy.

For every player that leaves for bigger and better, there are a dozen others left with now lesser and worse. A group of kids scrambling to work with what is now, opposed to what was supposed to be.

And for what, winning?

The best part of winning is knowing what it took to make it happen, and if the road to victory is measured only by the distance from one school to the next, how rewarding is that?

I had a conversation with a prominent area coach last season about this very thing. They had not yet been either the victim or beneficiary of the transfer game, and weren’t all that interested in changing that. But they were cognizant of the growing epidemic and begrudgingly said they might have to consider playing that game if they wanted to someday taste the ultimate spoils.

It didn’t matter that they had a great program, nor that it was one built on a foundation of homegrown kids, because what had always been a marathon has recently become a sprint, and it’s hard to win a 100 meter dash with kids who’ve been running a 5k.

Maybe I’m wrong. After all, we do live in an eat or be eaten world, and maybe if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’?.

But maybe I’m not. And maybe high school sports should be as much about doing it right as opposed to just getting it done?

After all, school is about education, and sports are about competition and character building, and both with winning where it matters most in mind – beyond the field of play.

Just some food for thought.