Local h.s. sports controversy

[yh]

Since I know there are a number of high school athletes and enthusiasts on the board, I thought I would share the unfolding saga of a local high school football team where a longtime rivalry has moved from the football field to the federal courthouse.  Bear with me, there are multiple issues . . . .

This summer the Rams hired Gill Byrd (long time SD Charger) to be an assistant coach.  Byrd was living in Green Bay at the time and moved himself and his family to a Residence Inn right next to Rams Park (which happens to be 1/2 mile from my office - not that it's relevant).  The Residence Inn is located in a school district that is not exactly at the top of the heap academically, so Byrd looked around at other school districts for his son.  The top public school district in the St. Louis area is Clayton, a small and very wealthy community located in the seat of St. Louis County.  By virtue of its high real estate values and the fact that it's the third largest business district in the entire state of Missouri and also by virtue of the fact that its population is relatively small thus creating low student-teacher ratios, the Clayton schools are very well funded and have the best teachers (by way of honest disclosure my wife teaches there but is not employed by the Clayton school district - long and unnecessary story there).  Therefore, Byrd took advantage of the district's policy of permitting non-resident families to pay tuition and enrolled his son at Clayton High School.

Well, the kid turned out to be the team's star player - as QB he led the team in passing, rushing and TD's and also led the team on defense in interceptions.  He was a machine, to say the least.  He led the team to a 9-0 record, a district championship and a playoff berth going into the tenth and final game of the regular season.

That's when the principal of Clayton got a call from the principal of arch rival Ladue High (whom Clayton crushed 38-7 earlier in the season) to advise that their AD confirmed that Byrd was ineligible and cited an arcane and ambiguous rule regarding non-resident transfer students.  Clayton was then forced to look at the rule and report themselves for what they thought was a misinterpretation of a rule.  The misinterpretation revolves around whether the rule applies only to kids transferring within the state.  Clayton was of the belief that when a kid comes in from out of state there is no mandatory waiting period.  The rule is not clear on whether that is in fact the case.  There is no interpretive history to act as a guidepost either.  The state high school activities association responded by declaring the kid ineligible for the final game and declared Clayton's first 9 wins (including the 2 district games that gave them their title) forfeits.  Even though Clayton won its last game without Byrd, they still don't get to go to the playoffs because of the other 2 forfeits.  

Now, without even addressing the vagueness of the rule which the association has now upheld on 2 appeals, there is an additional level of intrigue here.  It appears that the Ladue coach had information on Byrd shortly after their game with Clayton (early October and well before district play started).  Had they reported the violation at that time, the suspension would have taken place prior to the district games and Clayton might still have had a chance to make the playoffs even with 7 forfeits.  They might have even had adequate time to restore Byrd's eligibiity.  However because it appears the Ladue people waited until the point of no return (so they thought) they have pretty much assured that Clayton won't advance and thus there will be no rematch in the playoffs which there probably would have been if both Clayton and Ladue won their opening games.  

So, the playoffs start tonight at 6, a federal court is going to hear a request for an injunction against enforcing the vague rule and thus reinstating Byrd's eligibility and Clayton's spot in the playoffs at noon today.

So the questions linger -- should an entire team be penalized because their administration may or may not have misinterpreted a rule but thought they were doing the right thing?  Should the Ladue team be punished due to the malicious actions of their coach in not timely reporting his belief that there was a violation?  Does anyone really win by taking a football rivalry to the federal courthouse?

What do you think?

[Discrim]

looks to me like Ladue has no case.  i too thought that if you moved out of state you didn't have to wait to play, i know that's the case here.  at the same time, no i don't think Ladue's players should be punished cus their coach conveniently waited til almost the end of the season to point out a rule that, IMO, shouldn't apply anyway.  Since it's half hour after noon, any news on the injuction?

[yh]

Nope, nothing yet.  Also, to clarify, if he would have attended a school in the district where his family's temporary home is, there would be no problem, but since he's attending a school outside of the district where the hotel sits, he's considered a "transfer" from that district.  Seems like a very thin argument to me.

[Saintsfan]

This whole thing sounds crazy to me!

If the Ladue coach new about the whole thing before there game, and waited till after he has no case IMO. What would he have done if his team won? Was he just waiting as a back up?

I have no idea of the rules, but as the guy is a bon fide student at the school, and as I assume he was not approached to go to clayton HS by the school, why is he not allowed to play?

[yh]

Just to update, the case went to state and federal courts and each tribunal upheld the state activities association's ruling.  Therefore Clayton does not get to play tonight.  And in another postscript, apparently several members of the Ladue football team have expressed their frustration at their coach for creating the situation as they really wanted a rematch in the playoffs.

[Breakwood]

This has been taken way too far.  I play high school ball and the one thing i want most is to play, i could care less if the top team is playing with an ilegal player.  The coaches should leave it alone.

[Discrim]

Nope, nothing yet. Also, to clarify, if he would have attended a school in the district where his family's temporary home is, there would be no problem, but since he's attending a school outside of the district where the hotel sits, he's considered a "transfer" from that district. Seems like a very thin argument to me.

i agree.  from the information you posted, doesn't seem like he ever enrolled in the district where he's living, so there shouldn't be a case.  i mean, if you move from, say, illinois to missouri, and live in district A but never enrolled for that district's school and instead go to school in district B, then you go to school B.  did this coach have nothing else worth his time?  kid shouldn't be penalized cus his family moved from Green Bay to St. Louis...and he definitely shouldn't be penalized for his parents wanting the best education they could get for their son.

[xyzzyva]

For some reason, this reminds me of the Pine Tar game. Billy Martin had known for a while about George Brett's bat, but waited until it hurt the Royals the most before he used an obscure and irrelevant rule. Too bad the eventual ruling was different in this situation, as the 'spirit' of the MSHSAA rule has been violated.

[Mac the Knife]

This has been taken way too far. I play high school ball and the one thing i want most is to play, i could care less if the top team is playing with an ilegal player. The coaches should leave it alone.

Well, maybe I could agree if the guy was an offensive lineman, a punter, or some other player, but from what yhollander reports, this guy was to say the least an impact player.

My personal take on it is that, since it wasn't specifically spelled out in the rule being cited that it applies to out-of-state transfers, the player is legal and life goes on.  But should it be determined that the rule should be applied in this case, then yes, unfortunately the forfeits should be applied and the team should lose its berth.  Yeah, it harms the kids I know, but it also teaches them, albeit in a really harsh way, that its important as hell to pay attention to the details.

[KCScout76]

Clayton should have checked the rule - Ignorance is not a reason to base your legalities.  How ever, no one ever checks out what is best for the young man in this situation.  MSHSAA has been pretty fair on a number of occasions reguarding the eligiblity of student-athletes.

I, however, think that if the Ladue coach knew and kept low until the district games started,that's a  pretty low-blow!  I'll be checking the MOsports.com web site the next few days for the follow up on this story.

Big High School game this week in KC - Blue Springs (10-0) is at Rockhurst (8-2) tomorrow.  Rockhurst lost to Blue Spring earlier this year blowing a 17 pt. lead during the second half, losing in OT .  Revenge or another loss for Rockhurst on the way?

How ever I have tickets to the Pittsburg State (KS) - Northwest Missouri State football game at Arrowhead stadium tomorrow.  Last year over 28,000 should up for this game. ???  ??? Should be a good game, dispite the cold and rain that is excepted on Saturaday.

[yh]

Glad to see the Cats get the win this weekend.  As a former Jeff City Jay, I have a natural avarice to the Hawklets.  Now BSHS needs to take care of the even-more-hated Hickman Kewpies!

[STL FANATIC]

How 'bout them Wentzville Holt Indians?! Haven't been cranking out the points, but haven't allowed any in the playoffs. 6-0 win over St. Charles, and 8-0 over Vashon. Now we'll have a tough time with Ladue. I hadn't heard that Ladue was the team who brought this up. I'm glad we don't have to face em, but I felt bad for Clayton. Since Ladue did it, I hope we kill 'em even more.

[STL FANATIC]

I'd like to see an investigation on MSHSAA after I just watched the refs hold on to a victory for Ladue over Wentzville. I know I might have a rep for complaining, and I know their is always a little bit of home field bias, but you just had to be there. The Clayton ruling, these refs, I dunno, I don't wanna go full fledged conspiracy, but this just seems set up. The sorta things occasionally happen in HS sports.

[Discrim]

I'd like to see an investigation on MSHSAA after I just watched the refs hold on to a victory for Ladue over Wentzville. I know I might have a rep for complaining, and I know their is always a little bit of home field bias, but you just had to be there. The Clayton ruling, these refs, I dunno, I don't wanna go full fledged conspiracy, but this just seems set up. The sorta things occasionally happen in HS sports.

just cus of the mention of refs handing games to people, i'll tell ya something that shouldn't ever happen but did: three years ago we were getting our asses kicked, and we had a rarity going on: a good drive.  anyway, there was absolutely no excuse for this: one of the refs signaled touchdown...here's the kicker: the ball was at the freaking 5 yard line!  i seen peewee officiating better than some Wisco high school refs.

[yh]

I'd like to see an investigation on MSHSAA after I just watched the refs hold on to a victory for Ladue over Wentzville. I know I might have a rep for complaining, and I know their is always a little bit of home field bias, but you just had to be there. The Clayton ruling, these refs, I dunno, I don't wanna go full fledged conspiracy, but this just seems set up. The sorta things occasionally happen in HS sports.

STL, having been involved in HS sports back in the day, I'm pretty confident in saying that MSHSAA doesn't have enough influence over officials to engineer that kind of controversy.  That being said, I certainly was sorry to see Holt go down after the very impressive run they made in the playoffs this year.  Frankly, I don't think Ladue has a chance against a very strong Kearney team but even if they do somehow pull off the win, anyone who knows or cares about Missouri HS football is going to put an asterisk next to their title because they know that Clayton would have put another beating on them had they met Saturday.