We live in a sports world that is out of control. We see professional athletes making millions but acting like children, college athletes getting arrested almost every day, and crazed parents who think that little Joey is going to be the next Joe Montana and will go to any lengths to make it happen. But what has taken place in the North Georgia Football League this last week is one of the biggest injustices I have seen in my 25 years of covering sports.
It’s proof that while this country has come a long way when it comes to social equality for everyone, enough to elect a black president, there still is plenty of ignorance swarming around us.
OK, here’s the story …
The NGFL is the biggest of the middle school football associations (sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade teams) in the metro area, consisting of teams from 30 schools.
Each team is tied in with its respective high school.
One of those schools is Roswell, which helped build the league and is its most successful team on the field. But it seems there are some people over at the NGFL that want to put it to Roswell in a big way.
Let me explain …
In the quarterfinals of the playoffs on Nov. 8 at Roswell High School, the eighth-grade Roswell team beat Hillgrove 21-20 to advance to the semifinals. But after the game, the Hillgrove head coach put in a protest to the league, saying Roswell used an illegal player.
Then the NGFL executive committee went to work, doing very little due diligence on the situation while trying to make an educated decision. The group was split on whether it should make Roswell forfeit the game, so it compromised and suspended the Roswell head coach as well as the player in question, yet allowed the team to play in the semifinals. The Hillgrove coach (remember, this is eighth-grade football and it seems like, to this guy, nothing is more important) still couldn’t quite handle the loss (must have a lot of time on his hands) so he appealed the decision, and last Friday, in what the NGFL first called an email vote and then turned into a phone vote (not following any processes whatsoever), the Roswell team was made to forfeit the game.
So Roswell appealed and on a cold Sunday night with a large group of Roswell parents and players outside the Sprayberry High School press box and the NGFL board and a handful of head coaches inside, a vote was taken. Roswell lost a close one, earning 15 of a possible 31 votes.
OK, so you get the drift of the story, now here’s the real deal …
The student-athlete in question attends Crabapple Middle School under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2001. He gets on a bus at 5 a.m. every morning during the week and drives up to Crabapple to go to school and then heads over to Roswell High School afterwards for practice. Crabapple is one of two middle schools that feeds into Roswell High.
So the NGFL, a league tied in directly with the public and tax-supported high schools, using their fields, their lights and in many cases their monies being commingled into the high school’s football club account, has decided that, despite the fact that this student-athlete is allowed to attend Crabapple, he can’t play for the football team that feeds into the high school. On top of that, this player was on the team last year and was certified by NGFL officers this year. Yet they decide now to suspend him, the coach and the entire team. I don’t know why they didn’t just cut everyone’s heads off!
Roswell went as far as getting an attorney and a court reporter to help them organize their case for the appeal Sunday night. So what happened when they walked into the meeting?
The tomfoolery began.
No agenda from the NGFL (I think the secretary did have a pencil and paper).
No real written proof that this absurd rule even exists.
No old minutes. Nothing but a bunch of ignorant people, who at first didn’t even want to consider the fact that this student-athlete is part of the NCLBA act.
Even Roswell head coach Leo Barker, who played in the NFL for seven seasons and would later call this an “injustice,” spoke in front of the group. It may have swayed some people’s minds but several in the meeting kept talking about how they had this rule that nonresidents could not play in the league, despite having an exception in the residency rule for more than eight years to accommodate such situations. The league said it took the exception out during the summer, though it has no real written proof, which is usually a requirement when a corporation changes its rules or bylaws. And get this: when Roswell asked when the board had notified everyone of the rule change, officials said it took place in an email on Sept. 12, already two games into the season and after certification.
Are you kidding me?
I talked to the grandmother who has custody of the player involved and had her on my radio show on 790 The Zone on Sunday. She said she wanted the best education she could get for her grandson and he is heartbroken. He even told her, “Why don’t they just take me off the team and let them play?”
Now, how do I know about all of this?
Well, I am the director of the Centennial Junior program and I’m really embarrassed to be part of an organization that would do such a thing. Thankfully, my tenure is almost up.
But you really have to wonder what a judge would say if this case made it to court:
NGFL: “Hey Judge, we don’t recognize that dumb ol’ NCLBA program. Bush ain’t goin’ to be around much longer anyway. They can go to school and everything but when it comes to playing football with their classmates, we don’t allow that. And you know what judge, we really don’t have any proof of this rule or minutes or anything. Hey, we’re the NGFL, we can do what we want.”
Judge: “Well boys, first of all, I don’t allow chewing tobacco in my court – and buckle up those overalls and look presentable. And get those confederate hats off. Hey bailiff, get me a couple of officers, I got a good place for these Bubba Gumps upstate. See ya!”
Yeah, those good ol’ boys are still around.
But seriously, this is an example of a group of people who are simply out of control and who ignore the best interests of these kids. Now, not all of them are this way and I think the main problem is that the ones that rule this roost can’t overcome their egos enough to admit they are wrong. I will say some of the board members and coaches that voted in favor of Roswell said afterwards that this whole mess was terribly embarrassing and that there would be a dramatic change in leadership.
It can’t happen soon enough but, in the meantime, it is causing huge collateral damage and this league now needs to make it right, especially with respect to this student-athlete who has done nothing wrong. Instead, he has become the victim of a situation that certainly borders on discrimination and is perhaps a violation of his civil rights.
Our Federal government told this family they could send their kid to Crabapple Middle School. For me, the case is closed.
Rosenberg can be reached at 404-256-1572 and ijrosenberg@scoreatl.com.
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