braveheart

Don't worry about the publics getting some of your potential transfers RunAndGun, the guy that owns the pharmacy in Powell will ensure Grace buys up all the good recruits. He is bound and determined to buy a championship for your school. Just saying...

Let me try to address each of your above rebuttal comments. First of all, I gather you are probably only a few years out of high school from your post, but apparently are much wiser than the decision makers at Grace as to how the illegal activity at Grace should have been addressed. And I don't thing a Public Relations degree is necessary either to realize that stepping up and taking responsibility for your actions instead of playing the naive card, would have been a better option. I think most of us would have a lot more respect for the pastor and the school if they had just stated that they got caught up in all the winning and got off keeping Christ the main focus of the school, and then offer the those affected an apology. I also think many of the students saw through the facade, which only made many of them lose respect for the adminstrators and pastor, as I am friends with many of those who attended Grace in the past who have both insight and negative opinions as to what went on there. XBraves10X, it is a shame the powers to be didn't ask for your advice before making weak excuses to the public on the radio, tv, etc. If so, perhaps the verbal abuse Grace continues to take would not have been near as harsh. Anyway, in regards to your post... the kid from FL did live with one of your asst baseball coaches. If you know who he lived with, then you know this to be fact (if you are only going by what you have been told, then maybe not). As for people losing their jobs, the only person I am aware of was Coach Lamb. And there were numerous issues with him already, in that he was working there much of the time without a contract due to those issues. In fact, I was told that Pridemore threatened to pull his son out of Grace because of Lamb, and Slusher was to leave with him, as well (pretty easy to validate this being Pridemore is now your girls basketball coach). As for the transfers I mentioned, per the TSSAA, Adrian was required to sit our his first year at Grace, whether he was adopted or played sports at AE, or not. Here is language taken directly from the TSSAA website: Q. A student with or without an athletic record moves to live with a guardian other than a parent. Is the student eligible? A. No. A student must live with the new guardian, if other than their parent, for 12 months or longer. And by the way, it was the Pastor's son (not brother) who was to have adopted Adrian (I heard that was the intention of the pastor's son, but not sure if that ever actually happened, or not). Also, he actually met Adrian when he started an inner city church a several years back, and had not known Adrian all his life. Whether or not the intention was to involve Adrian in sports at Grace to benefit him or the athletic program at Grace, I will not comment on, as that would be speculation at best. As for David Amos, all of your facts are correct to my knowledge. However, after the KCS basketball program was turned down by the TSSAA to co-op with Grace, the Amos family petitioned TSSAA to allow him to be illegible to play basketball at Grace if he transferred. Again, all legal as you stated. However, I can tell you for fact they would never have approved the tranfer illegiblity if they had known the intention was for him to transfer to Grace only for the basketball season, and then withdraw and return to KCS to graduate. And just so you know, I only mentioned Amos because you stated in your post that Helton was the only transfer at Grace in the 4 years you played sports at Grace. As for my Pridemore comment, I never said he was a transfer (so I will let the dumb comment slide). That was only a response to your comment that all the people who have left Grace and went on to play college sports attended Grace in middle school (Pridemore did not attend middle school at Grace and he is playing basketball in college). Someone I failed to mention in my prior post is the star of your girl's basketball team who transferred from Oak Ridge after her freshman year. No family relocation of residence, no sitting out for a year, and no 20 mile rule adhered to, so I am still trying to figure how they pulled that off (or maybe they didn't and she played illegally). Since a lot of what is in you above post is incorrect regarding my comments, I actually find humor that yet another one of the Grace faithful (Ram Fan) jumped on the bandwagon to commend your post. No beef with you though, as you seem like a pretty decent young man. I am sorry you had to go through what you did while attending Grace due to the actions of a few adults. by asking .

I think the reason people continue to lash out at Grace is because they continue to deny things that are very open and evident to the publics (we didn't know we couldnt give that kid a benevolent check to pay his tuition, we didnt know that that kid wasnt eligible living with a coach while his parents resided back in FL, or as you mention above all of our athletes have been here since middle school). Im not sure if Grace people are just kept in the dark on things or if they just will continue to deny that they havent done anything wrong other than the with the Williams kid. Its just hard to believe they are in the dark, when most of us know different. Just so you know, Adrian Wannamaker was a transfer that did not attend Grace in middle school (went to play football at Carson Newman, but quit the team), David Amos transferred his senior year to play basketball at Grace and then transferred back to KCS and qraduated from there (currently playing football at Faulkner), Cameron Pridemore did not attend GCA in middle school (playing basketball now at UAM) and your current QB was a high school transfer from the Halls area. I can keep going if needed with the high school transfers. but I think I make my point. Not trying to be nasty, just trying to explain why we discredit the school. The publics continue to work with what we're dealt and we kept seeing Grace reload every year, and in every sport it seems like, keeping our kids from advancing in the state tournament. I think that is where the much repeated suggestion to go to Division II stems from. Just not a level playing field b/w publics and privates. I understand you sticking up for your school and you getting upset when your school is discredited, but a lot of it has been brought on by the powers to be at Grace. While I have little respect for McKamey, from what I have heard about Hoch, he is a class act (although I only know Hoch by reputation). I was not at the games where Grace ran up the score, so I cannot comment on the circumstance regarding that.

Your quote in itself validates that GCA need to move to Division II and play with the privates. If you're pitching 15 year old players an entire game, pitching every pitcher in your bullpen in another, playing every player on the bench, and doing everything but bunt each player in a game to keep the score even remotely respectable, you need to be in another division.

Dillon Pridgeon moved from FL to Knoxville (by himself) his senior season in 2008/2009, and lived with the asst baseball coach. After the 2009 school year, he graduated from Grace and returned to FL to live with his family. Coincidentally, Pidemore's son and Pridgeon played basketball together in FL, and Pridemore arranged for Dillon to come to Grace. The TSSAA is explicit about the rules concerning an athlete being required to live with their parents, and also about dual residency (either by themselves alone are illegal). Grace passed this off as filling out a form incorrectly. This was self reported by the school, albeit AFTER the state tourney when a parent brought it to the attention of the pastor BEFORE the state tourney (and that same parent left the church over the incident). Grace forfeited the boys basketball region title and vacated all wins in 2009. Ask around, do your own investigation, and you will find I'm right.

This is the same coach that used to be the boys head coach and asst coach at Grace. While serving in both capacities on the boys teams, there was at least one illegal starter and sometimes 2 illegal starters on the team the entire time he was associated with the boys program (which was 4 years). He even personally arranged to have one player move from FL and live with a Grace asst coach during his senior year to play on the boys team. After the season, the player graduated and moved back to FL with his family. Surprising that they hired him for the girl's team, with all the baggage he brought. Certainly not a good PR move for the school in that any legimitate success the school has now will always be questioned with him at the helm. Just shows that the priority of the school is winning. I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't doing something illegal again, with such a quick turnaround of the girl's team since he became the coach.

This coach is not part of your program anymore, nor has he been associated with GCA for 3-4 years. He moved to FL after leaving GCA and is a head coach for a high school baseball team there. I only posted this as I felt you attacked OldEagle and Cosby HS. Remember there are a lot of schools in the area who missed out on their kids playing in the post season due to the previous illegal activity at GCA. I know most have moved on, but when a post is made defending GCA, or when a GCA poster attacks another school, it opens the wound back up. Hope you can understand that. We're getting way off topic here though, so I'll get off my soapbox.

Either you are not reading my post very well, or you don't know Lamb that well. Lamb was never the head baseball coach at GCA. My post clearly references the head baseball coach. Lamb had his own issues that I won't go into here. And by the way, although my allegation may be an "I heard" as you mention in your post above, but that "I heard" came from several of your GCA school board members.

As I recall, a few years back the GCA head baseball coach's contract was not renewed due to the fact that there were allegations from the GCA staff that he had an inappropriate relationship with a female student there. However, GCA did a good job of keeping this out of the newspaper. Be careful when you start throwing stones, GCAPride.

Regarding my previous post, here's the link to article in the Knox News Sentinel... http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/oct/06/prepxtra-notebook-patton-robinette-still-to/

First of all, I am by now means a fan of GCA. However, when I read the above comment, my initial thought was that Clawball was just a Grace basher and there was no way this could be true. However, I googled it and found that Clawball knows exactly what he is talking about (at least per the Knox News Sentinel). My apologies for doubting you Clawball. I am not only shocked, but also disgusted by this. You just beat a team 40-0, and then you pour salt in the wound by singing this on the field (and the song is led by the head coach's son to boot?). What a total lack of class! You guys have totally destroyed your christian witness in this community!

Is this the same facebook page that the principal ordered shutdown after a only a few days of it being up? I agree there was a lot of angry posts on it, as I saw the website. Coincidentally, many of the posts came from former GCA students, and even some former coaches, who said the cheating had been going on for years.

The issue here is that the GCA folks are believing what is being fed to them by the GCA people running the show, including the pastor. If you look at the TSSAA question and answer section on their website, it clearly states: Q. A student with or without an athletic record moves to live with a guardian other than a parent. Is the student eligible? A. No. A student must live with the new guardian, if other than their parent, for 12 months or longer.[/b] Therefore if the pastor's son was Wannamakers legal guardian, Wannamaker still had to sit out for 12 months to be eligible. With the Williams kid, you admitted that the wrong doing there, although I find it hard to accept the pastor saying he knows that the students tuition has to be paid by the legal guardian and that he cannot provide tuition, but it is okay to provide the bereavement money to the grandparents so they can pay the tuition. Call it bereavment or whatever you want, but I believe that the pastor and the school thought they had found a way around the rule, and this belief was confirmed by a former GCA school board member who admitted the school thought they hade found a way around the scholarship issue. And if the Williams kid's grandparents had decided to not tell the truth and elected to show the TSSAA her cancelled tuition check (funds provided via church bereavement money deposited into their bank account), GCA would have gotten away with it. I highly commend the grandparents for telling the truth. Continuing to promote this as an honest mistake by the church and school insults our intelligence. Until you own the illegal wrongdoing, you will continue to be criticized and labeled as cheaters. Word of advice, take your lumps, own the mistake, and quit defending it In regards to the player from FL, that kid was actually brought up here by your asst basketball coach to play his senior year at GCA and lived with another asst coach. After his senior year, he returned to FL to live with his family. Athletes having to live with their parents and dual residency infractions are clearly explained in the TSSAA handbook. Apparently GCA feels they are exempt from reading it. Finally, again it appears that the GCA loyal continue to believe whatever is fed to them by the church and school, without confirming anything. And yet others in this community that were impacted by the cheating, are continually accused of not knowing what we are talking about. Unfortunately, many of us (Pujo included) are dead on with some of our accusations.

Wasn't an inadventant mistake. Perhaps you should talk to #5's grandmother. Apparently, the school makes a lot of inadventant mistakes. Just so you know, I know for fact that a family visited with Pastor personally about the baskeball transfer from FL a few years ago, before Grace's appearance in the state championship. Not only did the Pastor and school not address it, he allowed the kid to be on the court and start the game. It was self reported after the basketball season, and only after the family left the church, and Grace was fined and vacated those wins. Unfortunately, that same family has and continues to be blamed and crucified as being a family trying to destroy a school that professes to be showing compassion for ineligible athletes. As I recall there was another self report of a football player the same year the TSSAA came down on Grace having his tuition paid by several families. The Wannamaker kid also illegally live with the Pastor's son and played both basketball and football for the school without paying tuition. Guess that was inadvertant, too?

Very difficult to prove that a parent isn't paying the tuition of an athlete at Grace. They (church, Grace schoolboard, and other parents) have figured a way around the "no scholarship" rule. A check is written to the athlete's parent by the church or another parent, and then the athlete's parent pays the school (now they have a cancelled check in hand if the parent is questioned as to whether or not they paid the tuition). The only reason they were caught doing this before is because the grandparent of the ineligible athele confessed to it (apparently Grace didn't think anyone receiving tuition money would turn in the one providing it). Unfortunately for the pastor, the grandparent told the truth. If they would have instead showed the cancelled tuition check to the TSSAA and said they were paying the tuition, the TSSAA have had no grounds to penalize Grace for this. Unfortunately, there are others that are still illegal that will by no means confess as to how their child's tuition is being funded. Here's a link to another example of a suspicious situation at Grace: http://www.volunteertv.com/sports/headlines/124752949.html?storySection=story Why would a kid that appears to be on tract to play football for a D-1 college choose to attend a single A program (that is on probation for 2 years) over a AAA high school program (and pay to attend there to boot)? If this kid is as good as it sounds (and he is certainly a big contributor to Grace's undefeated season this year), why not go to Webb, where he can legally receive a scholarship and play for a program that continues to go far in the playoffs each year, even winning numerous state championships? If he just didn't want to attend the AAA public school that he was zoned for and tuition isn't an issue for his family, why not look at CAK or Catholic (both strong programs that are playoff eligible). Just suspicious that he would play for a school in which he has no oppt to be scouted by colleges in the post season. And in regards to your question as to why not turn them in if they are so blatant in their cheating, someone did. That is why both their football and basketball teams were put on post season probation for 2 years, and all their other athletic programs put on post season probation for 1 year. Plus, the fine that they received was initally communicated as being the largest single fine ever assessed a high school in the state of TN in the history of the TSSAA. Ultimately the fine was reduced, but still substantial, so not sure it ended up being the largest fine ever.