PullinGuard

The court affirmatively doesn’t know if they are in compliance. How do you? The point is, the court alone will decide if the kid is/was eligible. No, the TSSAA cannot act in contempt of the court order to cease and desist.

Past performance may not be indicative of future results.

That’s the rub. The TSSAA now has no direct role in interpreting the rule. The court now has full authority. I have no doubt you are correct if It were simply an appeal.

I think they will lose, based on logic and facts. If the ruling is based on some other consideration, you could be right.

Fayetteville is in the right. This all hinges on the definition of ‘territory’. Here is the TSSAA definition. *** Territory – For a public school, the “territory” of the school is the geographic boundaries and bus routes of the area served by that school as established by the local board of education. For a system-wide public school or a home school student participating at a public school, the “territory” of the school is the geographic boundaries of the school system. For a non-public school or a home school student participating at a non-public school, the “territory” of the school is the area within a twenty (20) mile radius from the school. *** Now, the ‘bus route’ specification is quite clearly meant to apply to ‘zoned’ school districts, with multiple high schools (NOT system-wide schools) in specific and enforced zones within a system. The territory for a zoned HS among multiple High schools in the system is within the bus routes of the particular zone and also within the geographic boundaries of the system that fall within that zone. The territory for a ‘system-wide’ HS is only the geographic boundaries - bus routes do not apply (they are intended to define the zones for multi-school systems). Fayetteville is clearly a system-wide school, since there is only one HS in the system. By the TSSAA’s rules, Fayetteville’s territory is defined exclusively by the geographic boundaries (all of Lincoln County acc’d to the school board, which the TSSAA recognizes has full authority in this matter). I don’t know if this was an attempt by the TSSAA to subvert the rules or simply an inability to correctly understand and apply them, but it’s quite clear that the previous ruling is incongruent with the published TSSAA rules and definitions.

The restraining order means the player is eligible until further action. That has the effect of putting Fayetteville back into the playoffs until further action, but whether or not a player is eligible is unrelated to the matter of officiating a game. So, there is no effect on the officiating of a game.

100% inaccurate. TSSAA had absolutely everything from the start and nothing changed, except the person reviewing it. A court will now decide the matter, and we will all see.

I don't see how that has any bearing or connotes any distinction compared to the Huntland situation. The local school board has full authority to decide what their geographic boundaries are acc'd to the TSSAA and Fayetteville's have been the entirety of Lincoln County for 40+ years. That is undeniable and hasn't been contested by anyone. The kid was ruled ineligible because, in spite of him clearly being within the well-established geographic boundaries, and despite the Director ruling him eligible, a bus doesn't run by his house. There are kids on every athletic team in Huntland in exactly the same situation (geographic area is all of FC, and there is no Huntland bus in their area), and probably have been for 40 years as well. Nothing wrong with either situation, and they are perfectly comparable. We ought to hear which direction this appeal ruling is going any time now.

That does not apply inside Franklin County. Those kids inside the county are the ones in question. There are kids in Winchester who do not have a Huntland bus attending Huntland and plying sports and not paying tuition. There is nothing wrong with this - it’s always been that way. But it’s perfectly analogous to a kid outside Fayetteville, inside Lincoln County, who doesn’t pay tuition, and doesn’t have a bus. If this ruling were applied to Huntland, they would be out of the playoffs too. That would be just as ridiculous as the Fayetteville ruling. For 40+ years kids outside Huntland bus routes have played at Huntland. Same is true in Fayetteville. This was a selective attack on Fayetteville for a buddy.

Inside Lincoln County, but not really associated with LCHS. Personal issue between complainant and Director of Schools for Fayetteville (maybe others too, dunno). If I’m correct, complainant has previous TSSAA association himself. Stepping back and looking at this, it appears that Fayetteville is being punished for NOT charging County students tuition. Which they have never done in 40+ years. I can’t see any way that could be sensible and it seems the rules are being twisted to achieve the desired end. There’s never been anything at all unusual about a county kid attending the Fayetteville system until now. Probably has never been a single grade in the system in any year where it didn’t occur.

Thank you. Have no issue with MC, was just making the point that this is clearly selective enforcement. It’s a 100% certainty that kids at Huntland don’t pay tuition and live where FCHS buses run. Headed to the playoffs I have no problem with them, either - let the kids play. But I suspect this is a buddy doing a buddy a favor to knock a team out of the playoffs.

Have no interest in Moore County and am not a Fayetteville fan. My only interest is in the rules being applied reasonably and fairly. I’m 100% sure there are many other schools in this situation and am strongly suspicious this is all a personal vendetta between the complainant and the Director of Schools for Fayetteville. To the contrary, Fayetteville was a big rival for me in Jr High. Thoroughly hated them growing up and have no connection now.

Who is the official who told you about this a month before it occurred? And this 100% applies to Huntland, FCHS, and LCHS. I’m sure dozens of others. It is certain Huntland and LCHS are in violation. I’m not sure about FCHS. The TSSAA admits that many other schools are in violation Also, there is no mention of tuition and no results when ‘tuition’ is searched on Moore County’s website. The TSSAA.ruling in Fayetteville was stated to be based on a website review. I will 100% confirm or deny whether the baseball player in question paid tuition tomorrow and will reply here.

I don’t know about football, but am 100% sure that applied to a baseball player last year.

When was the picture taken and was it in a game? I’ve been aware of him having been at Fayetteville much longer, but in any event, he simply had to be there by August to be eligible. I noticed that a poster in the Fay/Cornersville thread said on Oct 5th that a kid would be disqualified later, acc’d to an official who had told him (falsely stated that the kid lives in Alabama). Didn’t an official make this ruling? Why would the TSSAA plan a ruling and delay it until after all district games are over? Seem like pretty good questions that should be answered.

Pretty sure that is correct.

And if it’s a personal vendetta that is not and was never legitimate, then it should be corrected.

One other thing that may not be obvious. The TSSAA ruled on the player in September, saying he was eligible. Childress made that ruling, and nothing at all has changed with respect to the student nor his parents. Childress is out on medical leave now, and the matter was revisited by someone else (imagine the name is in this thread), who it seems has had a prior relationship with one of the complainants. I cannot directly confirm that part, but I have a very good source and do believe it. The complainant purportedly has no (current) direct or close association with any other particular school, but rather has historical, personal issues with people in the FHS system. I cannot confirm that either, but do believe it's accurate and common knowledge to those close to the situation. I believe the appeal is heard by a panel of eight and does not include Childress nor the most recent person who ruled on it.

I would say under this interpretation, the only ones where that would arguably be at all possible would be a place like Tullahoma, which has no buses at all. Otherwise, it would be a 100% no-go. Those kids could not play athletics, ever. Same for kids who live in Fayetteville, but who attend LCHS.

Can't speak to that, but I can almost guarantee there are kids served by FCHS buses playing for Huntland. And that's often been the case for decades, I'm sure. Now and then a kid on Huntland's bus route plays athletics at FCHS. I will say, it wouldn't be all that unusual for a kid in Elora to prefer the five mile drive to Huntland over the 20-30 minute drive to FHS or LCHS. This is a really big can of worms that they're opening, imo.

Varo can respond for sure, but this is exactly how I understand it. Any kid in LC is welcome at Fayetteville HS and always has been. Ruling says that since this kid is outside of the city and not served by a bus route (in-city routes only), that he's ineligible. 100% guaranteed Lincoln County has kids in the opposite situation. Live in the city (no county buses pick up in town), play at LCHS. Only difference is, no playoffs for LCHS. As I've noted, definitely kids playing at Huntland who aren't served by a Huntland bus route (open zoning in FC, but bus routes are specific to schools).

Might turn out to be a mistake. There's no question at all that Huntland has kids who went to North or South Middle Schools on their roster, and those kids would normally attend FCHS. I'd say there's a 99+% chance they are playing kids who are not served by a bus route.

Best approach might be for Fayetteville to file about two dozen protests of playoff schools, right before the appeal is heard.

It's mentioned in the rules, but I cannot believe this decision is in agreement with the spirit of the rule. If applied this way, there could likely be dozens or of schools in TN with ineligible kids, all over the state. For example, there are no Lincoln County buses that pick up inside the city of Fayetteville to my knowledge, but kids from Fayetteville do now and always have attended LCHS - should every LCHS win in history be forfeited? Many kids who are technically 'zoned' to attend Franklin County HS attend Huntland instead, you just have to provide your own transportation (Though bus routes are separate, you've generally been welcome to attend whichever high school you like in FC, provided you can get there). Good chance every team at Huntland has an ineligible kid now and probably always has had, if bus routes alone govern. There would be a few at FCHS where the opposite is true - Huntland bus runs by their house instead. There's a family with a son in Huntland in athletics and a daughter at FCHS in athletics. I can't believe that Lincoln County and Franklin County are the only two who would have dozens or hundreds of historical teams who would have to forfeit all games if the bus route rule governs. I'll bet there are dozens and dozens of schools that would be affected. How about Marion Co and SPitt - what are the boundaries and bus routes over there? I have no idea. I think this has a world more tentacles than anyone at TSSAA realizes at the moment. There might be a big number of playoff teams with ineligible players if this is applied across the board. Tullahoma has no buses, but allows kids from inside Franklin County and outside of Tullahoma to attend. Do they have to abandon athletics?

I don't think he got five carries, even. Hard to explain. LCHS has limited numbers (only around 30-32 players older than Fr) and is small in size, generally. Imagine they had several playing both ways. Even at the end of the game in 2018, LCHS didn't appear too interested in tackling 240 lb Wagner late in the game. I'm not sure they have a defender over 210-220 and don't think they would have held up if #24 had carried the ball a lot. I wonder if getting behind early just changed Mac's entire game plan. Looked like they tried to run a mashup of the Varsity and Fr offense and sort of made the offensive gameplan up on the fly. I don't think they ran the offense they'd practiced all week. I think the game that FCHS played was possibly the only one that LCHS could've beaten them at. I just don't think LCHS could've held up all night with Wagner running at them.