Our friends at the Seattle Times have a good story today about the sanctions given to the Garfield High School sports programs following violations of league eligibility rules in a September 10th football game:
Because of the incident, athletic director Jim Valiere was placed on administrative leave and he was asked to give back his school keys.
“My reaction is sadness and confusion,” Valiere said, who believes he’s been fired.
As part of KingCo Conference sanctions imposed Monday, Garfield will not be eligible for the football postseason this year and in 2011. In addition, the school forfeited its 24-22 win over Sammamish.
All of the school’s teams are on probation until Sept. 1, 2012, but will be eligible for the postseason.
When asked about the severity of the punishment, Garfield principal Ted Howard said, “It may seem harsh, but I can’t really elaborate on some of the other things that were going on behind the scenes. For it to get to that extreme, there were definitely some other things going on.”
Allen and Kelley said they felt they would have been fired if they hadn’t stepped down.
“There was some really hard thought taken into consideration, knowing how much Anthony Allen means to Garfield and the alumni here,” Howard said. “He’s a phenomenal coach … I hired him. It was something that wasn’t taken lightly.”
The article says that the issues came up due to failures in a system of academic probation periods, but communication breakdowns led to ineligible players participation in the September game. Read the whole story at The Seattle Times.
Scott did you cover the meeting at Garfield last night?
Why is everyone at CDN so silent about this?
Even in the Times comment section there is a lot of discussion about what’s going on. Does it not matter to the people that post on this site?
well, it IS just a game.
Tough to comment when all of the facts are not known.
please, please, fil us in. Like lucky said, it’s tough to comment–we know very little
I don’t know that there a reason to comment. I thought that Ted Howard’s comments probably said it all. Of course, more details would be interesting. However, they would also probably be sad and not change the outcome.
The meeting last night was covered by the Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/highschoolsports/20132
It certainly seems as if the punishment is too severe for the crime. I have looked for past incidence of ineligible players playing in our area and looking 15 years back this is far and above the strongest sanctions. One team played ineligible players all season and the coaches got a two games suspension. This is more than just a game, there are many lessons to be learned for our kids and there are many opportunities to set good examples for our kids on how to appropriately handle situations that seem unfair.
I can’t think about caring about anything more then the Boys that have put all that time in, and all the hard work, pain, homework, pain, and so mush more. You think about how many young men football keeps off of the street and in school wanting to be part of a team it is just crazy for WIAA to pull this on the Team of young men that has nothing to do with whatever happened. I don’t think men that coach at that level are doing it to be bad people I mean come on they are providing a service to these young men that can not be matched, but it is just crazy to see how it can be taken away without a thought to serve as a finger shake, and I hope the WIAA watch’s the news for a few years and looks at names on the TV cause there will be some Garfield Men names up there with nothing to play for cause they got it taken away for a Coach’s mistake and be clear until you tell us the truth about what did happen it was just a mistake without the facts. God Bless Kids…..
I totally agree, Bridget!
I bumped into the (former) Garfield volleyball coach the other night at the UW volleyball game. She informed me that the whole athletics program is in turmoil. Apparently the AD was a friend of a big NBA alumnus of Garfield, and after he came in the message was “Garfield is a basketball school. Period.” The volleyball team had to pay rent to practice in their own gym, becausd the basketball team was holding illegal practices in there!! They ended up resigning because it was clear that there was no interest in anything other than basketball, which is shame because they really built up the volleyball program.
My guess is that the football coaches are being sacrificed to keep the basketball program running. I agree the sanctions are extreme given the publicly stated infractions, but keep an eye out for problems with basketball eligibility and practice rules at Garfield over the next few years.
grown adults in important positions who gain off of holding people back people whos positive by joining a positive organization.
grown adults spend time bloging. Aint this site about crime.
or the community.
if this site was about community. Stand up and fight for the kids at garfield. And the faculty too. Shut your mouth and stop gossiping.
go cut some grass. Better yet. Go be a tutor. Or coach or teacher and help out. And read the bible.
this is my first blog and my last. Bulldogs stand up. Get a life
I think that’s a lot of hearsay. My kids play sports at Garfield. I’ll be interested to see the follow up on all of this. I have a high opinion of the AD. Gossip is not the answer, just like gods son said.
This is from the GHS football team fan page:
Dear Bulldog Boosters – Please read and share this with your friends!
School board representative Kay Smith-Blum has been following our plight, regarding recent harsh and unprecedented sanctions against GHS, and appears open to consider our requests and sympathetic to our cause. She was somewhat optimistic that a reversal of the ban on post-season play was possible for next year – but of course no promises could be made. She is… having an open meeting this Saturday at the Douglas Truth Library from 10-11:30am. This is a great opportunity to show our solidarity and continued resolve to demand a just appeal of the sanctions levied against our kids. We need to have a great showing to make it clear that we will not be dismissed and demand fair treatment. Please spread the word- WE NEED ALL GHS SUPPORTERS TO ATTEND. If you have any GHS team gear- wear it. It may be most productive to have a small number of focused questions to provide her before the meeting. I would like to get everyone’s opinions before this meeting to ensure that we have some consensus opinion about the issues people want addressed and what our goals are. For example- do we agree that our goals should include i) timely resolution (fixed deadlines so the kids can start looking towards the future), ii) re-institution of playoff eligibility next year and iii) re-hiring of our coaches? Please get the word out and send your questions and opinions by e-mail ([email protected]). Bob R. – Parent booster