Cleveland Heights removed from the Post Season by OHSAA
- Thread starter Bball216
- Start date
eastisbest
Well-known member
It's done in college. Or the exams are actually taken with the team and taken away from campus (kind of a fox guarding the henhouse scenario). Seen both methods done when a team is headed for some post season game.
The issue is only that they took the students to a discontiguous state. Not when they took the exams. Do I have that correct? This is important I think because it's the only thing holding up OHSAA's end of it. It would be a distraction for OHSAA to argue anything but that.
With all respect to the poster who feels this was well worded, it doesn't seem logistically well designed. You can fly to Vegas with less fatigue than a bis ride to Sarnia but one is a penalty for missing an exam you didn't miss and the other isn't.
?
It was on their schedule and no one in compliance thought to warn them? No one in the conference. No one the schedule. No one at OHSAA? It's all snidely whiplash standing on both sidelines saying "I hope they don't notice, I hope they don't notice?" No one comes out smelling good if these kids get punished on such whimsy.
If the rule is as I stated, discontiguous state, and students missed no instruction and received no favorable treatment not offered to many students whose families leave early for vacation, then OHSAA is going to get roasted if they stick to their guns on this.
Sometimes with best intentions, rules do not cover all the bases. Wise organizations see it. There doesn't appear any attempt by the school to deceive. Survey this monkey up, give the facts to member schools and see if a more reasonable accomodation can't be arrived at. Throw the egos under the bus.
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I believe the exact Cardale Jones quote is "we ain't come to play school, classes are pointless."
Yappi
Go Buckeyes
The rule about contiguous states is for the benefit of the schools that are on the border of other states. It is very common for schools to play neighboring school districts from contiguous states. You can't punish those schools for playing multiple games out of state. So now you come to the traveling circus that some high school teams are becoming. The OHSAA wanted to put a stop to it so they created the rule about NON-contiguous states. Again, there are plenty of schools that have gone to a Christmas or Spring Break trip long before the traveling circus teams. So to keep them happy, they limited it to ONE "long" (non-contiguous) out of state trip at a time when no school was missed. Very simple and straight forward rule that prevents the traveling circus.
It is easy to abide by and the punishment is consistent. As I said earlier in the thread, StV baseball and softball lost their postseasons just last year. It was frustrating for them but they understood they broke the rule and accepted their punishments.
Making special accommodations for student-athletes is a can of worms that shouldn't be acceptable. If you tell the regular students that an exam is on Friday, it's not a good look to say that the basketball players can take it on Monday so they can fly to a tournament somewhere on Thursday.
[QUOTE="Yappi, post: 7547721, member:
Making special accommodations for student-athletes is a can of worms that shouldn't be acceptable. If you tell the regular students that an exam is on Friday, it's not a good look to say that the basketball players can take it on Monday so they can fly to a tournament somewhere on Thursday.
[/QUOTE]
Life isnt fair. When we start teaching our children how the real world works versus the fictional fairytail schools make it out to be the sooner our world becomes better.
I can almost bet if you took a vote, 80%+ would be in favor of the basketball,wrestling, football, or baseball teams taking their exams early in order to go compete in a tournament somewhere.
Making special accommodations for student-athletes is a can of worms that shouldn't be acceptable. If you tell the regular students that an exam is on Friday, it's not a good look to say that the basketball players can take it on Monday so they can fly to a tournament somewhere on Thursday.
[/QUOTE]
Life isnt fair. When we start teaching our children how the real world works versus the fictional fairytail schools make it out to be the sooner our world becomes better.
I can almost bet if you took a vote, 80%+ would be in favor of the basketball,wrestling, football, or baseball teams taking their exams early in order to go compete in a tournament somewhere.
eastisbest
Well-known member
The parts of your argument that do not hold up I think:
The wording is, "no loss of school time." They could solve this whole problem by staying after school an hour a day for a week. Now how silly does the rule look? But as it is, they do not need to. THEY TOOK THE EXAMS. The school time was put in ahead of time.
As I stated, they were not being given special accommodations. It is not at all unusual for students, college or high school to arrange exams for earlier times due to families leaving early on holiday. It's not at all unusual for students to be exhempted from exams.
You're right, it is very straight forward. These students missed no exams. These students missed NO school. They missed no school like those teams playing in a neighboring state are permitted to do. They missed no school like those teams leaving early to make a faraway IN STATE game are permitted to do. Heck, they missed no school like those that play their games during school hours are permitted to do. They missed no school like the innumerable so called educational field trips we took as kids.
I don't know the StV situation. To presume this coach lying about the phone call when they had this tournament on their schedule for everyone to see? For anyone with a sense of sportsmanship to say ahead of time, "you can't do that?"
Your circus can legally play a tournament in Kentucky, Penn, In, Mich and Ottawa without punishment but not not miss a not-a-school day to go to Nevada. They lose tournament, for an adult decision. The rule should be ammended. It makes no sense and in this case, I think CHeights makes a good case, it was not clear.
OHSAA is going to look silly putting their foot down here. I wouldn't fault a judge at all for granting the stay.
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Yappi
Go Buckeyes
Then there is no need for a rule ever. Just let the sports control the school. Athletes can take their class time and their exams whenever their coaches decide it is the right time. Do you see the can of worms you are opening?
When you go to the teacher/school and say, "I won't be there, can you treat me special?" That is the definition of special accommodations.
If it was an issue, then I'm sure the 800+ schools would vote on it and the schools that want to be apart of the association would abide by the rule.
First, there is not one single location to find accurate schedules for basketball like you have for football. Second, basketball schedules are very fluid. There are plenty of changes to basketball after the season starts. I doubt many schools pay enough attention to their local teams until the results are posted. When a score says "Nevada Tournament" during school time, it might raise some eyebrows. Kind of unfair to blame this on others for not catching the mistake ahead of time.
Let the members vote and everyone abide by the rule.
I suspect that Cleveland Heights will win. Not because the law is on their side, rather, because it will be easier for a judge to side with the hometown. LeBron James had his season ending suspension reduced to a game because a local judge didn't like the OHSAA rule for amateurism. (Yes, it might have been a tough punishment to ban him for the season because he got $800 in shirts for free but when you ride to your court date in your brand new Hummer, it was tough to think of him as an amateur.
Followed immediately in the bylaws by a definition of "school time" that nullifies the rest of your argument.
I'm not familiar with this part of the story but this is something that's been nagging at me since I first read the thread--is there a connection between the two? It occurs to me it'd be a lot easier to talk kids into the switch if trips to Vegas are part of the deal. We've just seen this is in our corner of the state, with a public school getting a deluge of transfers and going on a Christmas trip to Florida, which I'm sure was a first for the school.
Raider6309
Well-known member
Shouldn’t be a rule but Ohsaa is pretty stupid
eastisbest
Well-known member
Probably that. This is a civil case so it may well also be on their side.
The formation of the rule still bothers me. The purpose of the contiguous/discontiguous seems disingenuous. Missing school "time" is missing school time. The rule isn't meant to prevent that. It's sole purpose is to prevent what StV's did. CHeights did no such thing.
As for the punishment? If people can presume the coach was manipulative and lied about calling I think they should be able to presume the "snitch" also had non-compliant intent. They knew in time to prevent the violation but saw an advantage in not saying until after the fact. Good sportsmanship would mandate warning the coach he was going to commit an error that would cost his team. Members cooperate, not backstab.
You're right.
Public/private: That topic I think just muddies the water as does whether or not anyone likes the situation at the school. Private schools around here have been going on these since I can recall. Were they using it to recruit? Yeah, probably. OHSAA has to focus on the rule regardless the intent of the rule. They did that. What do judges have to do? eh. It's a civil situation. I think they have more lee-way. And I obviously hope they do. It's a poorly intended rule and the punishment WAY too severe when apparently no classtime was even missed.
cardzfan1234
Well-known member
Want another ding against Heights? Another instance of lying? How about their so-called exam schedule? I thought it was strange that the school had an entire week of exams as mentioned in the articles. Well...they don’t. According to the AD, exams were the entire week of Dec 16-20 - which makes it sound reasonable that the team could possibly get in all of their exams in the first three days.
HOWEVER...according to the CHUH schools website, exams were NOT a full week. They were three days, Dec 18-20. Number one, I don’t believe that all the kids took their exams ahead of time. But even if I give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that happened, there is no way that the entire basketball team happened to have all of their exams on day 1 without special treatment.
www.chuh.org
HOWEVER...according to the CHUH schools website, exams were NOT a full week. They were three days, Dec 18-20. Number one, I don’t believe that all the kids took their exams ahead of time. But even if I give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that happened, there is no way that the entire basketball team happened to have all of their exams on day 1 without special treatment.
Exam Week Schedule
eastisbest
Well-known member
Want another ding against Heights? Another instance of lying? How about their so-called exam schedule? I thought it was strange that the school had an entire week of exams as mentioned in the articles. Well...they don’t. According to the AD, exams were the entire week of Dec 16-20 - which makes it sound reasonable that the team could possibly get in all of their exams in the first three days.
HOWEVER...according to the CHUH schools website, exams were NOT a full week. They were three days, Dec 18-20. Number one, I don’t believe that all the kids took their exams ahead of time. But even if I give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that happened, there is no way that the entire basketball team happened to have all of their exams on day 1 without special treatment.
Exam Week Schedule
I'm not sure that discussion doesn't muddy the waters. OHSAA has to stick to its wording, which doesn't care when or how the exams were administered. I think they have to put their whole argument on as few words as possible and leave all the presumptions out of it, don't you?
If it's only a matter of discussing whether they (kids, coach, someone) got screwed or not, then I'd not agree with what you're saying (obviously). If the teachers come out and say, "we didn't give those students exams" then I would say you have a point. I don't think you'll find many a teacher anywhere that at some time, didn't give a final exam to some kid during the last week of quarter. Or several after school on the first day, which was probably only a half day. It's simply not an unusual or special circumstance.
MY only point is, a school doesn't have to violate the intended spirit of the rule in order to violate the rule. The wordking should be changed to reflect the actual desire and games in contiguous states and countries should be treated no differently than those elsewhere. Missing school for extra-curricular is missing school regardless where you are when you missed it.
CHeights was participating in a single holiday tournament as many schools do. It's unfortunate that the tournament started so soon. One school can miss a ton of education and not be punished because they were in Toronto but by gosh if they go to an American state and not miss any education, they can get severely punished.
I think they can do without our condemnation. They are punished enough regardless a judge decides in their favor, just by the threat of not being in the tournament. OHSAA should recognize it was poorly intended, caught an innocent in its target and potentially someone showed extreme lack of sportsmanship in not just warning the school they had made a scheduling error.
East....I usually agree with you, but not in this case. The rule has been around 15+ years (thank Lebron and SVSM). It's a very commonly known rule. They broke it, they get penalized. Comparing it to college is crazy. Also, you keep saying the OHSAA made the rule....that's completely incorrect. EVERY rule the OHSAA has is either an NFHS rule, or a rule that was adopted by the ENTIRE OHSAA membership....meaning the Ohio Schools. The OHSAA can't "make rules".....the organization doesn't work that way. If a judge rules against the OHSAA on this, he's essentially ruling against EVERY member school in the state who voted to adopt the rules. Every team at every level that breaks a rule always feels like the rule was a bad one. I don't think I should have to drive the speed limit. I'm a really good driver....but hey, guess what, the police don't feel that way. And I"m pretty sure I've never gotten a judge to overrule the ticket for me. I did it, I paid the fine....simple
Yappi is right with regard to the contiguous states thing. It's in place due to the large number of schools near the borders that play out of state teams during their regular season. The second part of the rule is very simple.....you can go to Vegas, Florida, wherever you want....just don't miss school.
Yappi is right with regard to the contiguous states thing. It's in place due to the large number of schools near the borders that play out of state teams during their regular season. The second part of the rule is very simple.....you can go to Vegas, Florida, wherever you want....just don't miss school.
AllSports12
Moderator
A judge may grant a TRO, but that is only for the allowance of facts to be gathered/presented at a hearing that will be undoubtedly be of an emergency fashion.....
the school is grasping at straws......
Two things come immediately to mind here...
1) in this day an age, doesnt anyone find it odd that no record of date, time, and length of that alleged phone call to the OHSAA has leaked out? Stuff like this doesn't stay under wraps these days...... people would be all over that
2) the team not only violated the bylaw being discussed, but they also violated another rule..... playing 2 games in one day..... (I would also think that the maximum 5 quarters of participation in one day may have been breached as well)
almost 1600 other teams (boys/ girls)ad adhered to the rule.....
saying the rule and punishments are bad, isn’t going to fly
the school is grasping at straws......
Two things come immediately to mind here...
1) in this day an age, doesnt anyone find it odd that no record of date, time, and length of that alleged phone call to the OHSAA has leaked out? Stuff like this doesn't stay under wraps these days...... people would be all over that
2) the team not only violated the bylaw being discussed, but they also violated another rule..... playing 2 games in one day..... (I would also think that the maximum 5 quarters of participation in one day may have been breached as well)
almost 1600 other teams (boys/ girls)ad adhered to the rule.....
saying the rule and punishments are bad, isn’t going to fly
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Cleveland Heights will more then likely file an injunction with a district attorney to present all the facts in front of a federal judge,from what i heard last night at the game. ITS NOT OVER.
A federal judge will now here the case with the facts as Heights will file an injunction,which means the Euclid District cannot proceed until a ruling by the judge. If the judge rules against Heights then so be it.We will see. Confirmation on the filing will come Tuesday or Wednesday no school on President's day.
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federal judge? District attorney? Whoever you talked to is an idiot then. It’s just a simple matter for a cuyahoga county judge.
eastisbest
Well-known member
I'm not sure which part you're disagreeing with?
I state, OHSAA has to stick to their wording. I think we agree?
I stated the it is not unusual for a HIGH SCHOOL teacher to give an exam at a different time. Do we disagree that is not abnormal? There is no indication of special treatment here IMO, which was Yappi's concern.
I do understand and didn't dispute that the rule gives "special"
treatment to schools that wish to spend as much time away from school as they care to as long as it is in a contiguous state or province of a foreign country.I also stated, I think the rule is hitting an unintended target and needs to be rethought. Is that where we disagree?
Regards membership rules. I don't believe those are immune from legal judgment. Just because someone joins an organization and agrees to follow the rules, doesn't mean all those rules are legal and just. We see such things over-turned all the time. Legalities are difficult and the effects hard to foresee for the average person. Heck, they're difficult for the jurist. That's why we have an appeal process. I suppose much of what OHSAA does has been triaged through national organization but that doesn't mean all is in order in a civil sense.
Just personal opinion: but I think they might consider softening the death penalty in the future. Coaches and AD's do not have law degrees nor time to get and new Coaches and AD's are more susceptable to mistake with dramatic penalty than experienced ones. There should be a part of the OHSAA process that a schedule is submitted and reviewed in the hopes that any mistakes might be prevented. That's one reason why we join organizations isn't it? Community smarts.
Your right Cuyahoga County Judge,then Federal Judge AD said that he will exhaust all his options to him.
theterribletowel
Well-known member
The athletic director gets paid to know the rules. They might win in court and play but the fault starts and ends with the administrationI'm not sure which part you're disagreeing with?
I state, OHSAA has to stick to their wording. I think we agree?
I stated the it is not unusual for a HIGH SCHOOL teacher to give an exam at a different time. Do we disagree that is not abnormal? There is no indication of special treatment here IMO, which was Yappi's concern.
I do understand and didn't dispute that the rule gives "special"
I also stated, I think the rule is hitting an unintended target and needs to be rethought. Is that where we disagree?
Regards membership rules. I don't believe those are immune from legal judgment. Just because someone joins an organization and agrees to follow the rules, doesn't mean all those rules are legal and just. We see such things over-turned all the time. Legalities are difficult and the effects hard to foresee for the average person. Heck, they're difficult for the jurist. That's why we have an appeal process. I suppose much of what OHSAA does has been triaged through national organization but that doesn't mean all is in order in a civil sense.
Just personal opinion: but I think they might consider softening the death penalty in the future. Coaches and AD's do not have law degrees nor time to get and new Coaches and AD's are more susceptable to mistake with dramatic penalty than experienced ones. There should be a part of the OHSAA process that a schedule is submitted and reviewed in the hopes that any mistakes might be prevented. That's one reason why we join organizations isn't it? Community smarts.
the tournament doesn’t last long enough for this to get to the federal level. Whoever loses in the county, that’ll be that.
The AD is trying to cover his and save face (and his job). Anybody knows when you talk on the phone about anything important - you write down the contact name, extension, ect. The fact that he didn't and cannot produce a name should tell you he is either lying or incompetent - either way its Cleveland Heights fault. The OHSAA did nothing other then enforce the rule that Heights did not know or did not think they would get caught for breaking. They can say whatever they want after the fact - but the truth is they screwed up.
AllSports12
Moderator
This will not end up in Federal Court for obvious reasons.
You're correct, I gave him too much credit on his grammer, with his being a "student" athlete and all, LOL
Raider6309
Well-known member
Cleveland Heights used that week as finals. If you do not have a final, you do not have to show up. If that’s true Ohsaa has zero case
Ohsaa will let the kid from Massillon who was arrested and the Steubenville rapist play but god forbid if you are a normal school and play outside the state.
Ohsaa will let the kid from Massillon who was arrested and the Steubenville rapist play but god forbid if you are a normal school and play outside the state.
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