Sometimes you gotta take “No” for an answer

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Don’t mess with the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section.

Stockton Franklin learned that lesson the hard way. After being forced to forfeit 19 games because of a plethora of violations of section rules, Yellowjackets Coach Tom Verner elected to buck the section office and played three ineligible players last Friday against Tracy High, a game Franklin won but forfeited because of the ineligible players.

The reaction of the CIF-SJS Board of managers? The death penalty.

Colfax High principal Rick Spears, president of the CIF-SJS board of managers, announced today that the Franklin High football program has been shut down for the final two games this year plus the 2008 and 2009 seasons.

In addition, Franklin’s winter and spring sports teams will not be allowed to compete in section playoffs during the current school year. Spears pointed out that today’s decision was not punishment for the scandal involving athletes from American Samoa that found more than 50 violations of recruiting and eligibility rules, but rather for Franklin’s knowing use of the ineligible athletes.

Like the rules or not, the message is clear. Don’t mess with the SJS.

-- Eric Maddy, Times stats guru