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Previously, the state office would receive transfer forms during the summer, but wasn’t allowed to process them until after a student participated in three or more days of practice after the official start-up date (provided the student finished the previous school year at his or her old school). This year’s official start date (when football players don full pads and helmets) is July 28.

Former Green Hill athletic director E.J. Wood, who will begin his new position as assistant executive director July 9, said a large influx of transfer requests into the office was expected, likely more than in the past. Moving up the processing date would help clear the deck before the fall seasons begin the week of Aug. 18. Golf gets an earlier start, teeing off its season July 28.

Changes to Spring Fling

The transfer rule and, at least locally, Wood’s hiring to replace the retiring Gene Menees, received most of the attention during the Board of Control and Legislative Council’s joint meeting earlier this month.

But the Board also approved site selections for spring sport championships the next two seasons. And those will expand Spring Fling to two weeks and break it up from holding all sports in one general area.

High school track & field will decide its state champs at UT-Knoxville’s Tom Black Track the next two years while tennis moves to Champions Club in Chattanooga and UT-Chattanooga. Track & field had been held at Middle Tennessee State’s Dean Hayes Stadium for nearly two decades (with the exception of 2021 when COVID restrictions on MTSU’s campus prompted the meet to be moved to Rockvale High School) while tennis was held across town at the Adams Tennis Center.

Other sports will continue to be held in and around Murfreesboro. Wilson Central has been a baseball site for many years. But with flag football and lacrosse added to the menu the last couple of years, it’s put a strain on facilities and the calendar. Richard Siegel Soccer Complex has long hosted the boys’ soccer tournament. It also hosted flag football last month the week before the other sports. Now that flag football has been moved from “emerging sport� status to a full-fledged sport, the complex will host both events with flag football going May 14-15 and soccer May 19-22 next year.

Where lacrosse will be played has been tabled until August.

Tennessee was the first, and remains the only, state to adapt an Olympic-style championship format in which multiple sports are held at the same time in the same metropolitan area. It began in Chattanooga in 1994, moved to Memphis for a three-year run in 2003 and has been in Murfreesboro since 2006. The event has traditionally begun on Tuesday and wrapped up Friday or Saturday.