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Justin McGill, former sports editor of the Cadiz Record who now works with the Benton Tribune Courier, sent this comment about the KHSAA decision earlier this week to give Marshall County the state championship trophy back after they had been stripped of the title for using an ineligible player.
I figure SportsBytes readers can't get any better information on this situation than from a Trigg Countian transplanted to Marshall County, so here's how this whole thing looked from my point of view.
In May, a junior golfer transfered from a school in Florida to MCHS. This golfer did not compete in any school sports as a sophomore, simply because his previous school did not offer any sports. He played at another school his freshman year, and that team won the Florida golf championship in its class that season, but KHSAA rules state a transfer is eligible if he/she didn't play at the sending school the season before the transfer, so there's where the appeal came in. And there was absolutely no question that his transfer was legitimate - his mother was from here and moved home a year earlier with her daughter, and the son joined them this year. There was considerable confusion and miscommunication between the school and KHSAA concerning the paperwork in question - were they supposed to send in the form or not? On the form itself, the school is directed NOT to send it to KHSAA if the student meets the transfer requirements, which was the case in this instance.
Face to face, at least one administrator was told by a KHSAA official that everything was in order for this student - so says the administrator, at least. In the end, MCHS administrators had to take the fall for some of this, and that's how it all shook out after the appeal. It's how it should have happened in the first place - none of those student-athletes did anything wrong, and to punish them for what amounted to an administrative error (and it was a borderline error, in my opinion) was simply wrong.
That's my take.
JUSTIN MCGILL
Thanks Justin, and I agree with the last paragraph of his comment. The school and not the players should be held accountable for the mistake. Of course, the KHSAA does not have a great track record when it comes to consistency. If I recall, it was the players who suffered in 2002 when Trigg County was declared to have played too many games -- an administrative error it was called at the time -- and their postseason was cancelled.
I have no beef with Marshall County. The golfers got the job done at the region level and at the state level. The kid was deemed eligible to play when the season began and the KHSAA should have stuck to their guns instead of rescinding the title.
But had the vote went against the Marshals, they would not have been the first team to suffer because of an administrative error. And that's where the problem lies.
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