The Georgia High School Association knows that illegal recruiting of high school athletes is going on. It’s lack of evidence that makes convictions rare.
That’s why it was startling to have it arrive in the newspaper in the case of Shiloh quarterback Wil Larimore, who transferred last year from North Atlanta to join former coach Brian Montgomery at the coach’s new school in Gwinnett County.
In March, after playing his sophomore season, Larimore wrote in a story for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was asked by Montgomery to transfer.
“When he took the head coaching job at Shiloh, he asked several of us to transfer,’’ Larimore wrote.
If true, that’s illegal and could cost Larimore his eligibility and lead to sanctions against Shiloh. GHSA bylaw 1.70 prohibits “the use of influence ... to induce a student to transfer from one school to another ... for athletic purposes.’’
This week, Gwinnett County Schools announced it had assigned Montgomery to another position in the school system pending a GHSA investigation into the alleged recruiting violations. On Tuesday, school-system spokeswoman Sloan Roach said the district will recommend that Montgomery not receive a contract offer for next year.
“Mr. Montgomery was notified on April 16 that the district would be recommending his non-renewal to the Board at the April 19 BOE meeting,” Roach said. “Our human-resources investigation should be closing soon.”
Montgomery, who was 2-8 in his first season at long-suffering Shiloh, became the second Georgia football coach to get in trouble over alleged recruiting this year. In February, Troup fired Charlie Flowers, a Troup alumnus who had won a state title at Shaw in 2000, over allegations that he influenced a player from Alabama to transfer to Troup. The GHSA was not involved in that case, only the Troup County school board.
On Tuesday, GHSA executive director Ralph Swearngin said the AJC story — which was part of a package of articles that looked at the controversial trend of transfers that has changed the balance of power in Georgia high school sports — was enough to prompt an inquiry.
“I believe it came out the weekend of our executive committee meeting,’’ Swearngin said. “There were probably 30 or 40 inquiries at the meeting.’’
Swearngin said a few member schools were looking for answers about Larimore even before the article.
The GHSA made it a rule in March 2011 that athletes who follow their head coaches to new schools must sit out a year unless they can prove the move was coincidental. Among the GHSA’s questions to Shiloh is whether Larimore transferred before or after the bylaw was passed. Montgomery was hired in February 2011.
“There had been some concerns raised, and then the article in the newspaper brought a lot of things out, so I had sent letter of inquiry to Shiloh High School,’’ Swearngin said. “An inquiry is an attempt to get answers to questions. It’s not a presumption of guilt.’’
The GHSA has passed a number of rules in recent years to address illegal recruiting. They have made clear that representatives of a school include family members and relatives of students, alumni and boosters. Student athletes can’t join their non-school team coaches at a new school without sitting out a year. Schools can’t hold open houses to show off athletic facilities. Tuition to student athletes must be paid by family members or through financial-aid scholarships only.
There have been a few others, and more could be on the way. “I don’t know if you can make enough rules to keep people from cheating,’’ Swearngin said. “All we can do is close enough loopholes to make it harder.’’
Staff writer Nancy Badertscher contributed to this article.
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