I will come out of retirement to post on this topic...no LA fan, but I don't get what they did wrong here and why they are facing such a harsh punishment. Text messages between the parent of an 8th grade student and an assistant coach regarding financial aid? For one, as LA stated in their appeal, an assistant coach can't do anything about financial aid one way or the other, so whatever he's texting doesn't mean anything. I'm sure every private school had emergency training with their staffs this week about texting with parents this week. The parent says "LA is cutting our financial aid"...not sure what that means; as has been noted, the clearinghouse determines anyone's financial aid award, and by the looks of it LA is not short on cash, so I would guess he just didn't like what he was expected to pay. Either way, the TSSAA isn't saying LA messed around with financial aid; it's just about the text messages themselves. The kid isn't there anymore so clearly he didn't receive any improper financial aid. So I don't get how text messages between a parent of a kid enrolled at the school and an assistant coach at the school can somehow be considered "recruiting."
From what I have heard they were shopping around at BA, MBA and Ensworth because they didn't like the LA basketball coach. That said, LA should have just released him as an 8th grader/rising 9th grader, unless they feel pretty confident that Ensworth (where he is now) did something wrong in recruiting him.