A GHSA appeals committee voted 4-0 on Friday to keep two Marietta football players ineligible. It also voted 4-0 to allow one previously ineligible player to go free, giving him back his senior season.
The GHSA was right to rule that way in each case. And Marietta messed up again in the case of the player who was set free. The school failed to represent him effectively in the first hearing. More on that later.
First, the background on the two who are still ineligible.
Two Marietta players – Rashad Torrence and Dawson Ellington – transferred to Marietta last year and played for Marietta as sophomores. GHSA bylaws generally require that student-athletes sit out a year unless they make bona-fide moves in residency. Torrence and Ellington did not move, and they never claimed they did. But Marietta admittedly told the players that they would be eligible because each player had a parent employed in the school system. That premise was false. Despite their parents’ employment status, the players were still ineligible under GHSA rules, but they played last season anyway. It wasn’t until this summer that it was discovered, and that led GHSA to force Marietta to forfeit its eight 2017 victories.
The players argue accurately that they played in good faith, that they trusted Marietta when the school said they were eligible.
But the argument is flawed.
If someone innocently takes a candy bar from the lunchroom, thinking it was free on the advice of a responsible adult, he is still obliged to pay for it or give it back once the mistake is discovered.
Surely, the players and parents understand that.
What they don’t understand is why their kids can’t just play. Many don’t understand that, and perhaps they’re right. It’s a hotly debated subject. These players are major college recruits whose player development and college offers will be hurt by their sitting out a year. They’ve never intentionally broken any rules.
Why make them sit?
In denying the eligibility of these players, the GHSA is following its bylaws, and those bylaws represent the will of the GHSA’s 450-plus member schools.
The majority of those schools want student-athletes to sit out if they transfer unless they legitimately move.
The majority of those schools want Torrence and Ellington to sit out.
Don’t blame the GHSA. If anyone, blame the GHSA’s constituency. It’s the will of the member schools.
Last week’s ruling was not made by people who work in the GHSA offices in Thomaston. It was made by the GHSA member schools – which include McEachern, North Cobb, Hillgrove, Kennesaw Mountain, North Paulding, all members of Marietta’s Region 3-AAAAAAA. Each region gets a vote on the GHSA’s executive committee, which makes the bylaws.
Whether they will acknowledge it publicly, those schools are happy with how the GHSA handled it. They do not want transfers to be immediately eligible unless they move to their new school district. They do not want the Marietta transfers to be eligible.
Now, to the case of Jalen Hardy, the third Marietta player who appealed. Hardy, senior, won his case.
His case was different. He made a legitimate move, but Marietta apparently failed to argue that case effectively in the first appeal. In other words, Marietta let a player down, again. The GHSA’s definition of a ‘’bona-fide move’’ is trickier than one might imagine. The Hardy family owns houses in their previous and current school districts. There are certain GHSA rules designed to assure that a student-athlete has actually moved (ie, the previous house can still be owned, but must be relinquished, put up for sale, etc.).
If Hardy (and the other two) hadn’t gone to court and gotten a judge to force the GHSA to give second appeals, Hardy still would be ineligible. Given a chance to have his own representation before the GHSA, Hardy won eligibility that Marietta failed to get done.
High schools and their administrators have to do a better job of guiding and representing their student-athletes. Marietta would agree with that and has taken steps to ensure that it won’t happen again. This is not on the GHSA.
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