In 2006, Tino Sunseri, a high school quarterback, moved from North Carolina without his parents to attend Central Catholic High School for his junior and senior years, ultimately leading the Vikings to the 2007 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League and state championships.

That same year, Rob Gronkowski, a highly regarded tight end, left Buffalo, N.Y., to enroll and play football at Woodland Hills his senior year.

Last August, Leon Green, a star quarterback at West Mifflin, was granted eligibility at Gateway for his senior year, even though WPIAL officials ruled his family had not made a bona fide change of residence.

Almost every year, talented athletes transfer into and among Western Pennsylvania high schools, raising questions about how well the state's athletic transfer policy works.

While almost everyone agrees the present policy is filled with loopholes, supporters of it have long argued that flexibility is needed to deal with various issues, including family strife, job-related moves and a parents' desire to transfer the child from public to private school.

A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette study of 1,500 transfers dealt with by the WPIAL over the past seven years found it was equally clear that many talented athletes who changed schools were granted eligibility despite doing so with "material athletic intent," which the rules expressly prohibit.

State rules stipulate that if the moves were based on material athletic intent, including a desire to play for a coach in a highly successful program, or to gain increased attention from college recruiters or to get away from a personality conflict with a coach, school principals, who make the decision, are supposed to make the students ineligible to compete for a year.

While some believe those high-profile transfers, like the Sunseri, Gronkowski and Green cases, come under unduly harsh criticism, others say they are examples of the arbitrary nature of how the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association's rules governing eligibility of transfers for sports are governed.

Because of those and other problems, officials of the WPIAL, one of 13 administrative districts within the PIAA, have tried for the past year and a half to strengthen the state rules.

On Friday, after two weeks of debate by the PIAA board of directors, a compromise proposal from the WPIAL was withdrawn due to a lack of support, another much more liberal policy was rejected, and then both proposals were sent back to a committee charged with considering yet another compromise that reduces suspension for athletic transfers from a year to as little as 30 days. After more discussion, a final vote could come as early as March.

"We wanted to remove judgment from the process because it was inconsistent. We're hoping this will satisfy everyone when it comes up for a final vote," said WPIAL President Richard Constantine.

At the outset, the WPIAL's Catholic school representative and others across the state favored the more restrictive rules.

Since then, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, a statewide coalition of Catholic schools, has spearheaded a move to defeat the WPIAL proposal.

As it moved through a three-vote process, the WPIAL representatives agreed to several concessions, hoping to gain passage of a measure that would reduce the fast-growing number of transfers. In the WPIAL, athletic transfers have grown by 30 percent a year since 2000, causing the league to handle more than 300 appeals in 2007.

The WPIAL's original proposal removed high school principals as the arbiters of eligibility under the rules, arguing that the principals applied rules unevenly, but returned their role under pressure from the Catholic Conference. But the WPIAL fought to keep in place a new rule that banned participation for a year if a bona fide change of residency did not occur.

Two weeks ago, with a combination of opposition from the Catholic Conference and three other PIAA districts, the WPIAL proposal was withdrawn before a vote because it was not going to win the two-thirds majority needed to change the PIAA constitution.

On Friday, yet another proposal was rejected. This one reduced seven pages of specific transfer rules to 15 paragraphs and gave principals more power over determining eligibility than ever before.

That's when the board sent both proposals to its ad hoc committee to craft another policy that reduced the length of suspensions in athletic transfers.

"Our frustration is that we were aware that change was needed. When we put our proposal forward, we only sought a consistent application of the rules," said Tim O'Malley, executive director of the WPIAL.

"If there is going to be change, we want to make sure it's positive, not negative. We don't want a more lenient rule, for God's sake," he said.

The Post-Gazette's study of WPIAL transfers found that more than 90 percent were approved. But even when WPIAL denied eligibility, more than 50 percent of those cases were overturned on appeal at the PIAA.

The analysis found that 73 percent of all transfer requests considered by the WPIAL since 2000 involved moves from public to Catholic schools, with seven Catholic schools accepting more transfers than any public school in the WPIAL, few of them involving changes of residences.

The transfer procession was led by North Catholic High School, which accepted 91 student-athlete transfers, followed by Greensburg Central Catholic (81), Seton LaSalle (50), Pittsburgh Central Catholic (48), Serra Catholic (38), Bishop Canevin (31) and Oakland Catholic (29). No more than 30 individuals transferred into any public school during that period.

Statewide, PIAA records show that between 1997 and 2007, 64 percent of the cases it handled -- 51 of 80 appeals --came from the WPIAL. Three districts in the state had no appeals during that time, and none of the other PIAA districts had more than seven.

To Mr. O'Malley, that evidence proves "somebody is misinterpreting the rules or looking the other way and that's what we were attempting to get at because the rule as it exists today is inconsistently applied."

Mr. O'Malley said the WPIAL's failed proposal tried to limit the rising numbers of athletic transfers by closing a loophole regarding residency that has long benefited Catholic and other private schools. Under its original proposal, a student who could not prove a bona fide change of residency after the beginning of ninth grade would be ineligible for varsity competition for a year. That is now set to be reduced.

Walter Blucas, former president of the PIAA and director of District 10, which governs schools in northwestern Pennsylvania, opposed the WPIAL's original proposal.

"Most district chairman feel the current rule is not perfect, but I don't know there is one that can be perfect," Mr. Blucas said before Friday's meeting. He was not available to discuss the proposed reduction of the length of suspensions.

Attorney Craig Lee of Upper St. Clair, who has successfully represented many student athletes in transfer cases, says the changes pushed by the Catholic Conference and the districts who oppose the WPIAL rule changes will perpetuate a process that is often arbitrary and unfair, especially in deciding whether the student athlete has made a bona fide change of residence.

"There are many kids who slip under the radar," he said, because principals often do not adequately investigate.

Tino Sunseri, the son of Sal Sunseri, the former Central Catholic and Pitt football star now a coach with the NFL's Carolina Panthers, spent his sophomore year with his parents at Weddington High School in Matthews, N.C., quarterbacking the football team.

For his junior year, he transferred to Central Catholic, living in the home of his uncle Gusty Sunseri, a Fox Chapel attorney who became the child's legal guardian. That is one way to obtain an immediate participation waiver as long as there is no "material athletic intent."

He was declared eligible after a hearing.

Afterward,Tino's father defended the move: "The transfer was not for athletic intent. It was for the betterment of my family and my child," he told the Post-Gazette.

Until his retirement in 2001, Patrick Ratesic, a former principal at Irwin High School who served for years as a WPIAL board member, repeatedly voted against immediate eligibility for athletes.

He argued that if the WPIAL change of residence proposal passed, it would have resulted in a ruling of ineligibility for individuals like Tino Sunseri.

"They were not denying extra-curricular activities. What they were doing is saying it has to be at the sub-varsity level. He can still play. Why isn't that good? You know why, because athletics is the main reason that kid is going to that school," Mr. Ratesic said.

The Gronkowski transfer case led to a WPIAL hearing after a newspaper report in which Gordon Gronkowski, the owner of several G & G Fitness Equipment stores in this area and father of the athlete, was quoted in the Post-Gazette as saying they moved to the Woodland Hills district so his son could play for a more competitive football team.

Based on that, the WPIAL ruled the younger Gronkowski ineligible for his senior year.

On appeal to the PIAA, the ruling was reversed by a 5-0 vote and his eligibility restored after his father said he was misquoted in the newspaper interview. (The Post-Gazette stood by the accuracy of the quote.)

"What didn't come out at the WPIAL and wasn't public were some issues inside the family that weren't publicized," said Mr. Lee, who represented the Gronkowskis.

After earning all-state honors in his one year in Pennsylvania, the younger Gronkowski earned a football scholarship to the University of Arizona, where he started as a freshman last fall.

Leon Green, who shared a backfield in grammar school in West Mifflin with Terrelle Pryor, the all-everything football and basketball star who transferred to Jeannette, was a star at West Mifflin High school by his sophomore year. After he quarterbacked an 11-1 team in 2005, his team plunged to a 3-6 record in 2006 and he transferred to Gateway for his senior year.

When the West Mifflin principal refused to sign a "principal-to-principal waiver" because it was at best unclear whether or not Leon's family actually moved, the WPIAL ruled him ineligible.

The PIAA reversed the ruling and Gateway reached the WPIAL AAAA finals. He has yet to decide on a college.

Cases such as these were the reason the WPIAL started a process in October 2006 to re-write the rules.

Mr. O'Malley said the WPIAL believes the "material athletic intent" test was often applied arbitrarily, even capriciously.

Without naming names, he mentioned a recent case in which a Mt. Lebanon High School wrestler was ruled ineligible because his transfer to Canon McMillan High was for "material athletic intent," even though his family was moving due to financial problems.

"But when you look at him and you look at the kid who went from Buffalo, N.Y., to Woodland Hills, what the hell is the difference?" Mr. O'Malley said.