Why do athletes transfer high schools in Minnesota? Here are some answers.

TRANSFERRING IN MINNESOTA | This is part of an exclusive Strib Varsity series.

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The high school student-athlete transfer portal is a real thing. You’ve heard of the college sports portal. Minnesota has its own portal, and every athletic director in the state has access to it.

It is a secured online database that includes names, high schools and home addresses. The portal form can also include explanations of the transfer. This is all populated by hundreds of student-athletes each year in various sports who want to switch schools.

Bob Madison is among the administrators who have access to that transfer portal. He oversees athletics eligibility for the Minnesota State High School League.

What he sees when he looks into the portal are explanations for transferring that often trigger an eligibility approval, enabling students to continue varsity sports right away at their new school.

The transfer portal forms are no place, however, for student-athletes and families to express athletic dreams.

“No one has said in the portal we want to go here because we want to win a state championship,” Madison said.

A student who transfers without declaring one of the MSHSL eligibility policy exceptions sits out 12 full months from varsity competition. Wanting to join a new team is not one of those exceptions, yet in almost every sport, in almost every season, students transfer schools to improve their prospects in athletics. Sometimes that’s one of the reasons. Sometimes that’s the main reason. What the portal doesn’t know won’t kill it.

With many of the true answers to “Why transfer?” being elusive, Strib Varsity spoke with more than a dozen student-athletes this winter about their transfer experiences and reasons. Some of their answers give insight into perhaps the most contentious topic in Minnesota high school sports.

The students talked about their recruiting prospects, striving for more team success or even championships, fresh starts after a family move and just being happier.

And they had something else to share, too: Transferring isn’t a sin.

“We should look at it as a positive thing,” said Hill-Murray basketball standout Sarah Poepard, who transferred from Mahtomedi. “Because honestly, if you know a situation isn’t right for you, then it’s all right to look around.”

Apple Valley senior wrestler Cassandra Gonzales, now a four-time state champion and former Shakopee star, agrees.

“There are negative thoughts people have around transferring,” she said. “I feel like people don’t give athletes a chance to speak up on why they transferred.”

Here then are some reasons to transfer, in the words of athletes:

To find a better fit

A steamy football practice field is an unlikely starting point for a basketball state championship journey, but that’s where Minnehaha Academy’s Ayden Green began to feel comfortable. Seven months after suiting up in football pads at his new school, the Breck transfer was hoisting a Class 2A trophy with his relatively new Redhawks teammates on the raised Williams Arena floor.

“It was a little difficult in the beginning during football season because I didn’t know a lot of guys coming in as the new kid,” Green said. “But they were definitely really welcoming. It made me feel like this is where I want to be.”

Green, a junior, would run point for first-year coach Jadee Jones once basketball started. The Redhawks started the season 0-3 but rode blooming chemistry to a 26-win season and the first state championship since NBA champion Chet Holmgren’s senior season in 2020-21.

“We trust his decision-making and what he can do getting to the rim and making good choices for us,” Jones said. “He’s put us in a good position all year long.”

Green scored 21 points in the championship game. After a family move, he came to Minnehaha Academy hoping for this moment. “I knew this was a great program with a great legacy,” he said.

“I knew once I stepped foot on the court that everyone on the team trusted me,” he added. “All the guys trusted me. It’s just a good feeling when you have the whole team supporting you.”

Like Green, Tate Hardacre had to find his way after arriving at Minnetonka this school year. Hardacre took online classes at Minnetonka during his junior year and then left Southwest Christian, where he was a boys hockey captain.

“It was a challenge at first, definitely, to kind of learn my space,” the senior defenseman said. “I loved the journey and the process that it took to get here.”

Hardacre’s impact soared once he adapted to the “speed and smarts” of Class 2A, he said. His former SW Christian teammates even kept in touch as he made it to the championship game before the Skippers lost a 5-4 thriller against Moorhead in double overtime.

“They’re not jealous or anything,” he said. “They’re not mad. They’re still supporting me.”

Gonzales, Apple Valley’s championship wrestler, also harbored no hard feelings about her former school after her family moved away from Shakopee, but she was confident that transferring after her freshman year was best for her growth.

Winning her fourth state title and going undefeated at the 155-pound weight class this year was a defining moment for Gonzales. She recalled the very first talk with her Apple Valley coaches. Everything “just clicked,” she said.

“There are a lot of things I learned about the mental aspect,” she said. “Freshman year [at her previous school], I was really stressed and felt a lot of pressure. By my senior year, I realized whatever happens, happens.”

Transferring set up Gonzales to become one of the state’s all-time best in her sport.

“I was just looking for a place to check the boxes of things I felt I needed,” she said. “It kind of just ended up being a dream.”

To play with friends

The booming club sports and AAU scenes are making it easier for players to be persuaded to transfer. Athletes, coaches and families spend so much time together on trips and at tournaments. Chemistry leads to change.

Basketball senior Duke King, one of three first-year transfers in Tartan’s rotation, wondered why his summertime AAU teammates didn’t think about playing together in high school earlier.

“It was in our face the whole time,” King said. “We’ve all been playing with each other. So, it’s just like when I was able to afford to move into another house and it happened to be in Oakdale, it was the perfect opportunity. I got to play with my guys.”

Nolen Anderson and Christian Wiggins starred side by side together at Wayzata, winning the 2024 state title, and were AAU teammates for years. On the same D1 Minnesota team last summer were Max Iversen and 7-footer Jack Thelen, who left Delano and St. Michael-Albertville, respectively, to come to Maple Grove and join AAU teammate, Baboucarr Ann.

Last year, Stillwater’s A.J. Taban was with Howard Pulley’s AAU program. He transferred to Totino-Grace this past season and teamed up with Pulley teammate Malachi Hill for the Eagles’ fourth state title in five years under coach Nick Carroll.

Player relationships influencing a potential high school move seems natural, but the MSHSL is hoping to get enough support to regulate how much AAU coaches actively recruit transfers to their high schools.

“There’s concern out there with the proliferation of club and AAU,” said Madison of the MSHSL. “I would say soccer and basketball — probably more often than not, I hear about it. We need to keep an eye on that.”

Even without club connections, friendships can be at the center of a transfer.

Maddy Kimbrel went to four straight Class 1A girls hockey state tournaments with Orono. But she won the Ms. Hockey Award and finished third in Class 2A after moving and transferring to Holy Family.

“I didn’t really have any expectations,” Kimbrel told Strib Varsity in February while discussing her All-Minnesota Player of the Year honor. “I was so excited to play hockey and do it with a new group. And I had some close friends coming in.”

Kimbrel transferring to Holy Family meant she could play with Fire goalie Kayla Swartout, who will join her at defending NCAA champion Wisconsin next season.

“I think a lot of it was just growth going into next year [at Wisconsin], development and being pushed a lot in practice and in games,” Kimbrel said.

To boost recruiting prospects

Nehemiah Ombati had interest from Division I football programs during his time playing at Waconia. It did not compare with the attention he received after moving to Shakopee.

The 6-2, 275-pound junior defensive lineman was a fan of Shakopee’s system led by coach Ray Betton. And the Sabers were already attracting Power Four programs to see Betton’s son, Blake, a standout junior linebacker and safety who committed recently to Penn State.

“[Shakopee] ran college defenses,” Ombati said. “You don’t get that at many schools. But it wasn’t just the school that gave me the opportunity, it was the exposure. And I had the passion and the will to really stand out.”

It did not take college coaches long to be enamored with Ombati, who now has scholarship offers from Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Minnesota, among others.

“When I came to Shakopee, I had two [Football Championship Subdivision] schools showing interest and there wasn’t that much confidence around the state I could get into this position,” Ombati said.

Hill-Murray basketball’s Poepard, offered by a handful of mid-level D-I programs before her family’s move, had high-major coaches watching her practices after transferring from Mahtomedi.

Poepard averaged a career-high 17 points with the Pioneers, who reached the state tournament this season. She watched her profile rise while playing alongside sisters Mya and Ashlee Wilson, the state’s No. 1 prospects in the 2027 and 2030 classes.

“The biggest reason I transferred was getting ready for college and finding the best fit,” Poepard said. “A lot of people told me not to go to Hill. Getting to know the Wilsons, [first-year coach Betty Trull and staff], I just realized I was up for the challenge. I was up to playing with other D-I players and taking the next step forward.”

To win and to grow

Tartan’s King longed to experience being part of a winning basketball program. After he left for Tartan before this school year, his former team, North St. Paul, went 0-24 during the regular season this season.

His new team, Tartan earned a No. 1 ranking going into the postseason and reached the state tournament for the first time since 2014.

“I hadn’t seen anything like this before,” King said after the Titans beat Cretin-Derham Hall in the section championship game. “I’m glad I came over here. This is what winning feels like.”

Tartan boys basketball coach Mark Klingsporn has amassed 735 victories during his 37-year career, but even he hadn’t added as many transfers as he did this season — four, more than any team in Strib Varsity’s preseason Top 25.

This influx of talent helped the Titans extend their winning streak to 57 straight regular-season games.

The biggest surprise transfer to Tartan was Tyrel Pride, who played for Klingsporn for two years and transferred as a junior to St. Paul Johnson only to return to the Titans as a senior. A student keeps eligibility anytime their family moves out of a school’s district.

“He just matured so much,” Klingsporn said. “He was our best perimeter defender. He gets the other teams’ best matchup all of the time.”

The 6-1 guard initially left for a bigger role in a smaller class (Johnson is 3A), but Pride came back because “the difference was the level of competition,” he said.

“I feel like it’s way better to prepare me for college to play against higher-level people,” Pride said. “So whatever college I do decide to go to, I’ll be more prepared.”

A St. Paul native, King moved with his family into an apartment in Oakdale near Tartan. That allowed him to be eligible right away. He noticed there were advantages to transferring other than sports.

“The academic program with the team really supports you,” King said. “That’s the most important thing to me, to be honest. You can’t play if you don’t have the grades. If you get support with your schoolwork, you’re going to want to do better and play harder. Everything has been uplifting.”

Mesa Jameson, a five-star volleyball prospect and the state’s No. 1 player in the Class of 2028, also saw significant gains on and off the floor after transferring to Eagan from Park of Cottage Grove.

Jameson had to sit out Eagan’s first two matches before being cleared by the state high school league. The athletic director at her new school had to verify that she moved into the district.

“Learning to adapt with volleyball and doing more homework was a little stressful, but the overall transition was really good,” said Jameson, who now lives with her father in Eagan.

The springy 6-3 Strib Varsity All-Minnesota team selection ended up leading the Wildcats to 25 wins and the No. 2 ranking in the final regular-season Class 4A coaches poll. She had a team-high 327 kills and was named to the Under-17 U.S. national team.

Jameson’s old program, Park of Cottage Grove, went 2-21 this past season without her.

The grass isn’t always greener elsewhere, but many Minnesota high school athletes, like Jameson, are willing to see how much better things could be in a different spot.

“One of the reasons why I switched was because I wanted to prepare for college,” Jameson said. “I’m going to a better school to learn — and obviously, volleyball was better there, too. It was a win-win.”

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Transferring in Minnesota

This story is part of a Strib Varsity exclusive series focused on student-athletes transferring high schools in Minnesota. Please read our series overview story here.