Eligibility violations difficult to avoid, athletics directors say
How could this happen?
The county’s ongoing investigation into Northern Guilford High School athletics, which already has stripped the school of two administrators and a state championship for boys basketball because of eligibility violations, has spawned a barrage of questions like this from the public. Many of them were directed to Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green in a series of heated public and private meetings in recent weeks.
For many exasperated athletics directors here and across the state, the biggest question is: Why did it take this long to confront a growing problem that’s much bigger than any one school or county?
“I give Mr. Green the utmost respect for addressing the issue. I really believe he’s doing the right thing,” Southwest Guilford High School Athletics Director Brindon Christman said. “We’ll be better people because of it.”
Athletics directors are responsible for policing eligibility, but they’ll tell you that on top of tending to team travel needs, maintaining fields and setting schedules, it’s not always easy to ensure that every student lives where and with whom they claim.
“If a kid or a parent lies about it,” Eastern Guilford High AD Randall Hackett said, “what can I do?”
The truth is, not much. The only foolproof solution would be to follow each student-athlete home, and no AD has the time or inclination to do that.
“The athletics director is not a private investigator,” Eden Morehead High AD John Harder said.
It’s a complicated enough process as it is, Harder said. ADs must verify each student-athlete’s attendance, grades, promotion standards and a valid physical at the start of every season. Harder gets a computer printout confirming most of that information, but he double-checks it himself. He said just verifying grades can take two or three full days of work.
“It’s one of those things where you do 99 out of 100 things right,” he said, “and then the one thing you do wrong could really hurt you. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to do it. It just takes time.”
Ideally, Harder said, he’d have somebody else verify the information after him. But shrinking staffs and the increase in non-faculty coaches have made it more difficult to get that extra set of eyes.
Christman said it takes him at least the first two weeks of any season to track down all the information he needs to verify eligibility. And that’s with every one of his coaches collecting documentation during tryouts and meeting with Christman to review every player’s folder.
Christman and Hackett said they think the investigation will turn up the heat on ADs and coaches to be even more diligent in policing themselves.
Schools attorney Jill Wilson said last week she found “red flags” immediately after looking at some of the ineligible Northern Guilford students’ records, and that “those flags should have come up just as quickly” with school officials. Northern principal Joe Yeager and AD Derrell Force resigned in April.
Northwest Guilford announced last week its JV baseball team would forfeit 11 games and pay a $250 fine after using an improperly enrolled player for the first half of this season. “You’re kind of only as good as your registrar and your guidance department. People can’t check every folder of every kid that plays a sport,” Northwest AD John Hughes said.
Intent is key. The inevitable human errors, Christman can live with. The growing number of cases in which people try to deliberately mislead the school system to gain an advantage, he’s having a harder time accepting.
The increasingly competitive college recruitment process has infiltrated the high school ranks — “a trickle-down effect, no question,” Christman said, “where unfortunately, the NCAA is hurting the hand that feeds the mouth.” He said it’s created “a culture of circumventing the rules.”
“It’s tragic that we have come to a point in our country where we prostitute our children the way we do. It’s just tragic,” Northern Guilford interim principal Pat Spicer said. “It’s not about education, it’s not about athletics. It’s about what sells tickets.”
In recent years, most schools have started making parents of student-athletes sign a waiver attesting that their child either lives in the school’s district or has received an exception to attend. That form, which removes much of the liability from the school, is not mandatory, but many expect the county to make it so soon.
“I just don’t think it’s the schools’ fault,” Christman said. “We may be part of the problem, but there needs to be a solution.”
“You can come up with all these regulations to get it done,” Hackett said, “but parents are still going to try and find loopholes to try and beat the system. It’s just a handful, but that handful really ruins the whole thing for a lot of people.”
Part of Christman still likes to envision high school sports the way they were when he played 20 years ago, when kids never thought twice about playing for the school in their own backyard. One look around today shatters that vision.
“The time has changed,” Christman said, “and we’re just not caught up.”
Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com
Accompanying Photos
Photo Caption: Northern Guilford High School
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