![Reigning All-Midstate boys bowler of the year Cole Flatt was declared ineligible to compete this season after transferring from Culleoka to Columbia without moving.]()
Reigning All-Midstate boys bowler of the year Cole Flatt was declared ineligible to compete this season after transferring from Culleoka to Columbia without moving.
Last January, Columbia Central bowler Cole Flatt accomplished something no other bowler in Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association history has — claim back-to-back Division I individual state titles.
The two-time Tennessean Midstate Boys Bowler of the Year might eventually earn an opportunity at championship No. 3, but it won’t be in the 2016 TSSAA Bowling Championships, held at Smyrna Bowling Center later this month, despite now attending the school in which he has bowled since eighth grade.
Flatt, a junior who hasn’t rolled in a single TSSAA-sanctioned event since helping lead the Lions to a third straight Division I team championship a season ago, was declared ineligible to compete this season after transferring from Culleoka Unit School to nearby Columbia Central over the summer.
“Overall it just hurts the team, not having another 200-plus bowler out there,” said Flatt, who posted a team-leading 214.86 average a season ago. “Taking that kind of average away would hurt any team.”
According to the TSSAA’s transfer rules, a student who has an athletic record (previously participated in a sport) who transfers without a bona fide change of residence by his or her parents, is ruled ineligible for 12 months from the student’s last participation date.
Because Flatt had already established an athletic record at Culleoka in both baseball and bowling, coupled with the fact that his parents did not change their address, he was declared ineligible to compete in either sport for 12 months.
That is the price Flatt paid for picking academics over athletics.
Cooperation?
The fact that Flatt was already bowling for Columbia Central while attending Culleoka — made possible through the TSSAA cooperative program (which allows two or more TSSAA-member schools to form a single team in a sport in which at least one of the schools does not and has not had a team for the last five years) — proved irrelevant in this case.
“I understand that if you play basketball or baseball or football for a school, you shouldn’t be able to play the same sports for a different school without sitting out,” Columbia Central bowling coach Mike Ransom said. “But a co-op program? You’re pulling a kid off a team that he’s already on.”
In other words, when Cole created his bowling record while at Culleoka — the point that ultimately disqualified him from competing this season — he did so while wearing a purple and yellow Columbia Central jersey.
“We never thought anything about bowling because we were already bowling for Columbia Central,” added Gary Flatt, Cole Flatt’s father and an assistant bowling coach at Columbia Central. “It wasn’t like we were hurting the Culleoka bowling team by transferring. There isn’t one.”
That’s true, but by transferring, Cole Flatt did damage the Culleoka baseball program — at least according to the TSSAA.
“When the Legislative Council put the cooperative program rules in place several years ago, one thing that was put in was that your athletic record counts at the school you are enrolled at and in regular attendance (Culleoka) — not the school you participate for (Columbia Central),” TSSAA Executive Director Bernard Childress said. “If we granted (Cole) eligibility, you not only have taken a bowler away from Culleoka, you’ve also taken away one of their best baseball pitchers.”
![Flatt posted a team-leading 214.86 average a season ago, leading the Lions to a third straight Division I state championship.]()
Flatt posted a team-leading 214.86 average a season ago, leading the Lions to a third straight Division I state championship.
Long time coming
Gary and Lisa Flatt’s decision to send their children — Cole and his younger brother Luke Flatt — to Columbia Central wasn’t made overnight. It didn’t have anything to do with athletics, either.
“Culleoka is a small unit school — kindergarten through high school — and it’s a school that doesn’t have all the resources that bigger schools do,” said Gary Flatt, who contends that claims of his boys being recruited to play baseball at Columbia Central were “absolutely not true.”
The parents, who also had two older sons graduate from Culleoka, had planned on making the move for academic reasons just as soon as Cole was old enough to drive.
“At Columbia Central they have honors classes, and Culleoka doesn’t offer hardly any of those,” Gary Flatt said. “If you do any type of honors or college courses you have to go all the way into town to (Columbia State Community College) — past Columbia Central.”
It’s not that the TSSAA believed the Flatts were recruited to play baseball at Columbia. In fact, the reason for transferring holds no relevance in this case.
“If it’s for academic reasons that’s fantastic,” Childress said. “You have every right to enroll your children into a school they feel is going to give them the very best opportunity academically. But with that, while we totally respect it, it does not carry with it athletic eligibility.”
According to Culleoka assistant principal Ken Harris, he warned Cole that by transferring he would almost certainly be declared ineligible to bowl or play baseball in 2015-16.
“I asked are you willing to give up bowling for a year?” Harris said. “I said, ‘If you don’t change addresses you’re not going to be eligible. That’s just a fact; that’s their rule.”
“Gary was ready to pack up and go,” Ransom added. “But Cole said, ‘No dad. I really hate to hurt the team, but school’s more important than playing sports,’ so they went ahead and did it.”
Paying off
Despite having to watch from the side as his squad attempts to pull off the four-peat, Cole Flatt said that he would “absolutely” make the same decision again.
“It’s been really hard not being able to bowl,” Cole Flatt said. “Our seniors this year, I’m really close to all of them, and not being able to be out there hurts them. I definitely feel like I’m part of the team and being able to spend time with all the guys has been good. I’m thankful that I can at least do that, being able to enjoy a little bit of it.”
In Cole’s absence, others have needed to step up for the District 8 champion Lions, including his younger brother, Luke Flatt, who boasts a team-leading 221.59 average — good enough for third in the state.
“It’s really been good to see (Luke) step up,” Cole Flatt said. “He’s a freshman averaging over 220 and really holding the team up. He’s pretty much taken my spot from last year, and he’s really helped the team out a lot.”
Luke, who also transferred from Culleoka to Columbia Central, is eligible to bowl and play baseball this year because, unlike Cole, he transferred to Columbia Central prior to his freshman year — his first opportunity to do so (Columbia Central offers grades 9-12).
“This was his first opportunity to move to that school in the same system — it has to be in the same system,” Childress said of the loophole that allows Luke Flatt to compete this season after having bowled for Columbia and attended Culleoka a season ago.”It’s very, very rarely used.
“It has to be in the same system. If someone was at a Davidson County K-12 school and then transferred to a Williamson County 9-12 school without a change of residence by their parents, they would be ineligible because it’s two different school systems.
“We don’t have many situations like this occur on a yearly basis. It’s probably not even double-digits. They just took advantage of the rule and the way it was written in the eligibility guidelines.”
Gary Flatt said he wouldn’t mind looking into a change of the aforementioned rule.
“I know that Cole has been disappointed, but we’re going to try and get Luke through the year,” Gary Flatt said. “It’s over for us, but I would like to help find a way to correct this because everybody we’ve talked to scratches their head.”
Childress — who said scenarios like this occur “all of the time” — doesn’t expect a rule change.
“The Council and the Board members want to protect those schools that don’t offer certain programs from losing an athlete who may be one of their better athletes in another sport,” Childress said. “That was discussed quite a bit in detail.
“It’s very hard for parents to understand, but you can at least see why it is the way it is.”
Reach Michael Murphy at 615-259-8262 and on Twitter @Murph_TNsports.
