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When Irmo High School makes its debut in South Carolina’s high school football playoffs this Friday, the Yellow Jackets are expected to make a deep run while a local rival, Gray Collegiate, will be left out. But their relative positions now feel like they have less to do with performance on the field and more with decisions made by the high school league.
Both Gray Collegiate and Irmo were accused of playing an ineligible player this season, but Gray’s players stayed home when the playoffs began last Friday while Irmo’s are set to start as a top seed after a first-round bye. That’s because the executive committee of the South Carolina High School League voted last week to uphold sanctions imposed on Gray, including a playoff ban, while largely dropping sanctions against Irmo at the same meeting.
“We applied the penalty the exact same way,” High School League Commissioner Jerome Singleton told The State about the playoff bans initially assessed against both schools. “But the executive committee have the authority, and they can use their discretion.”
Why the difference? Both cases involve questions about whether a player was actually living in the right school district, but the evidence against each was distinct.
A player on Gray’s team had moved to West Columbia from an apartment in Columbia. Although Gray is a charter school, in order to be eligible to play for the War Eagles, a student has to live in the Lexington 2 school district, which covers Cayce and West Columbia. But investigators from the High School League found an elementary school-aged sibling was attending school in Richland 1, though without that child’s school records, Gray was unable to tell the committee whether she was attending under the family’s old address or as an out-of-district student.
High school league investigators said the fact the sibling was in a different school district, coupled with the fact a car associated with the family was seen at their old apartment building, was enough to sow doubt about whether the player’s entire family had actually moved school districts, as eligibility rules require.
Gray argued they couldn’t verify the sister’s living situation because they don’t have access to her files in another district, and the student could have driven the car back to his old stomping grounds.
The Irmo case was similar — a student had moved into the Irmo attendance area, but had a younger brother still attending another school the player had previously attended, in this case Gray. That player’s family also had a previous address in St. Matthews listed with Gray, where investigators thought the family may still be staying.
In that case, the family presented a notarized document showing that the player’s parents had separated, and much of the debate at the committee hearing centered around whether that constituted the “court action” required by the high school league to recognize a family separation.
But the main consideration made by members of the committee centered on how the two schools responded. Deputy high school league commissioner Charlie Wentzky told the committee he first alerted Gray to concerns about their player’s eligibility on Sept. 20, but didn’t get a definitive reply until Oct. 25. Gray said it took time for the school to confirm the information the league asked about.
The notification came just before Gray’s first region game of the year, and the school confirmed it continued to play the player in games it has since had to forfeit because of the league’s decision.
“If I had answers by that next week, they would at most have had to forfeit that [first] game, but they could have played going forward,” Wentzky said.
Gray asserted they believe based on their own procedures that the entire family was living in West Columbia, and saw no reason to stop the student from playing.
Irmo made a similar argument about their challenged student, arguing that Gray simply had an old address for the student’s family. “Where did we err?” Lexington-Richland 5 Superintendent Akil Ross said at the hearing on Irmo’s behalf. “We’re accused of having a family not making a bona fide change of address, but we have no evidence to the contrary.”
When Irmo was alerted to the player’s eligibility issue on Oct. 31, they began holding the player out of games.
Based on the evidence presented at the hearing, the committee voted 10-2 to uphold the sanctions against Gray, including game forfeitures, a playoff ban and a $500 fine. The committee also voted 10-2 to prohibit Irmo from playing the challenged player, but otherwise waving any other punishment.
Gray appealed their punishment to the league’s appeals committee, but that was rejected Tuesday, Nov. 12, by a 5-0 vote. At least one member thought Irmo should have received the same punishment.
“I think if the other one would have came to us, in my opinion it would have been a different ruling,” said committee member Otis Rawl after the hearing. “If the executive committee would have upheld the ruling against the other school [Irmo], I think this panel would have done that too. We have been consistent as an appellate panel that whole family has to move to meet the by-laws.”
The State reached out to Gray and Lexington-Richland 5 for comment about the committee’s decision, but had not received a reply before publication.
Lou Bezjak contributed to this story.
This story was originally published November 15, 2024, 11:38 AM.
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