Sumner County Director of Schools

[sumcofootball]

Today marked the start of the 2022 school year for Sumner County Schools. It also marked the start of the inaugural year of the Liberty Creek school system. The poster child school for Sumner County Director of Schools Del Phillips and Mayor Andy Holt. Today appeared to be the day that Liberty Creek found out which of their transfer students would become eligible to play this year and which ones would not. Since the county decided it would be a wise idea to create a full game schedule for every sport, it seems like they found out they would not have as many eligible as one may have thought. According to TSSAA rule, these athletes that were not zoned for Liberty Creek, and instead are going out of zone, would be ineligible one year since the last contest date that they played in. This would make most of their athlete’s ineligible. This morning Del Phillips decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to the administration of every school that had an out of zone player going to Liberty Creek and demanded that they put their last date of participation being August 1st, 2021, marking them all eligible for athletics this year. Is it unfortunate that some of these players would be ineligible for athletics this year, yes, however; that is the decision that they decided to make. This decision by Del Phillips was not sent out by email so there would be record of it, instead he went knocking on the doors of each administration making sure they knew that he wanted them to break the rules. The rules that have been in place for each new school system that has been built in the state. The rules that were not broken for Nolensville, Ravenwood, Independence, Green Hills, and I am sure in county school Station Camp when it was created in 2002. Everyone has their own opinions on the new school and how allocation of funds were used, but demanding administrations to falsify athletic records to make players eligible does not make sense. If one player were to transfer to another in county school, I’m positive Del Phillips would not demand that the old school falsify athletic records to make that player eligible. Gross misuse of his power to better help his new school.

Edited August 2, 2022 by sumcofootball
Misspoke on date of eligibility

[GWAVE1]

13 minutes ago, sumcofootball said:

Today marked the start of the 2022 school year for Sumner County Schools. It also marked the start of the inaugural year of the Liberty Creek school system. The poster child school for Sumner County Director of Schools Del Phillips and Mayor Andy Holt. Today appeared to be the day that Liberty Creek found out which of their transfer students would become eligible to play this year and which ones would not. Since the county decided it would be a wise idea to create a full game schedule for every sport, it seems like they found out they would not have as many eligible as one may have thought. According to TSSAA rule, these athletes that were not zoned for Liberty Creek, and instead are going out of zone, would be ineligible one year since the last contest date that they played in. This would make most of their athlete’s ineligible. This morning Del Phillips decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to the administration of every school that had an out of zone player going to Liberty Creek and demanded that they put their date of eligibility on athletic records starting today, August 1st, 2022, marking them all eligible for athletics this year. Is it unfortunate that some of these players would be ineligible for athletics this year, yes, however; that is the decision that they decided to make. This decision by Del Phillips was not sent out by email so there would be record of it, instead he went knocking on the doors of each administration making sure they knew that he wanted them to break the rules. The rules that have been in place for each new school system that has been built in the state. The rules that were not broken for Nolensville, Ravenwood, Independence, Green Hills, and I am sure in county school Station Camp when it was created in 2002. Everyone has their own opinions on the new school and how allocation of funds were used, but demanding administrations to falsify athletic records to make players eligible does not make sense. If one player were to transfer to another in county school, I’m positive Del Phillips would not demand that the old school falsify athletic records to make that player eligible. Gross misuse of his power to better help his new school.

If this is true, did they do it??  

[sumcofootball]

40 minutes ago, GWAVE1 said:

If this is true, did they do it??  

I have not heard which, if not all schools did. However, he is their boss and it seems like they were not given a choice. I assume we will know in a few weeks if these players are playing or not.

[eers]

Surely this can’t be true…

[werazzlin]

Certainly not… if so that is terrible leadership

[13sports]

The TSSAA transfer portal does not have a specific area for a person to list a date of eligibility.  They can only list the last date of participation.  Therefore, I don't know about the validity of this.  

[sumcofootball]

1 minute ago, 13sports said:

The TSSAA transfer portal does not have a specific area for a person to list a date of eligibility.  They can only list the last date of participation.  Therefore, I don't know about the validity of this.  

I misspoke in my initial thread. He requested that the last date of participation be put down as August 1st, 2021 making yesterday the official day they could be eligible. Wait until August 19th, they will have multiple starters on the field that are out of zone players that should be ineligible. Liberty Creek's starting QB was the starter for Beech all of last year, including their playoff run. He is an out of zone player that should be ineligible until one year from Beech's last game. The same with two other players from Beech and even a few players from JP2, which Del Phillips has no control over what happens on the JP2 side. I have never seen an athletic director or administration willingly put down that their starting QB is eligible to play after they transfer from their school to a different school in the same county.

[eers]

32 minutes ago, sumcofootball said:

I misspoke in my initial thread. He requested that the last date of participation be put down as August 1st, 2021 making yesterday the official day they could be eligible. Wait until August 19th, they will have multiple starters on the field that are out of zone players that should be ineligible. Liberty Creek's starting QB was the starter for Beech all of last year, including their playoff run. He is an out of zone player that should be ineligible until one year from Beech's last game. The same with two other players from Beech and even a few players from JP2, which Del Phillips has no control over what happens on the JP2 side. I have never seen an athletic director or administration willingly put down that their starting QB is eligible to play after they transfer from their school to a different school in the same county.

Wasn’t the starter the entire year, rotated at the beginning and was the two at the end… that’s why he transferred. I do believe his mother is employed at the school, making him eligible. 

 

[Doppelganger]

33 minutes ago, sumcofootball said:

I misspoke in my initial thread. He requested that the last date of participation be put down as August 1st, 2021 making yesterday the official day they could be eligible. Wait until August 19th, they will have multiple starters on the field that are out of zone players that should be ineligible. Liberty Creek's starting QB was the starter for Beech all of last year, including their playoff run. He is an out of zone player that should be ineligible until one year from Beech's last game. The same with two other players from Beech and even a few players from JP2, which Del Phillips has no control over what happens on the JP2 side. I have never seen an athletic director or administration willingly put down that their starting QB is eligible to play after they transfer from their school to a different school in the same county.

I am confident in saying that Anthony Crabtree would not sign off on this situation, albeit he is not an administrator.  

[sumcofootball]

9 minutes ago, eers said:

Wasn’t the starter the entire year, rotated at the beginning and was the two at the end… that’s why he transferred. I do believe his mother is employed at the school, making him eligible. 

 

Still played in the playoff games, nevertheless he isn't the only player that the eligibility would be in question. There are numerous players whose eligibility was in question and schools were asked to falsify records. This all stems back to the county making a ridiculous decision in creating a full ten game schedule including Oakland, Portland, and Nolensville without knowing what players would be able to play. In there first scrimmage against Green Hills on Friday they already had two players leave with a broken bone. 

[sumcofootball]

17 minutes ago, eers said:

Wasn’t the starter the entire year, rotated at the beginning and was the two at the end… that’s why he transferred. I do believe his mother is employed at the school, making him eligible. 

 

Also, his mother is employed at the middle school not the high school. TSSAA rule states the parent also has to be a "full time certified teacher" and she is an office worker not a certified teacher. 

[eers]

6 minutes ago, sumcofootball said:

Still played in the playoff games, nevertheless he isn't the only player that the eligibility would be in question. There are numerous players whose eligibility was in question and schools were asked to falsify records. This all stems back to the county making a ridiculous decision in creating a full ten game schedule including Oakland, Portland, and Nolensville without knowing what players would be able to play. In there first scrimmage against Green Hills on Friday they already had two players leave with a broken bone. 

While I agree there are a lot of things that should have been done differently, I am certain no admin, AD, or coach at either Beech or Station Camp would blatantly falsify records. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by eers