Father Fights CIF Over Son’s Eligibility

After last year’s high school football season, Demetrius Jones received letters from more than 20 colleges and universities. Some of the schools have pretty good football reputations. Ever heard of USC, UCLA, Nebraska or Notre Dame?

Those schools and others were interested in Jones for two reasons. First, he was a good offensive lineman, even though he only began playing football as a junior in high school. Second, he was 6-6, weighed 220 pounds and was barely 16 years old. College recruiters knew that under the proper stress and strain in the weight room, and with a diet consisting of lots of vegetables and the daily equivalent of an elk, they could probably turn this gangly youngster into a strapping young adult with the basic proportions of an Oldsmobile. An Oldsmobile station wagon.

The letters to the Calabasas High junior were all basically the same:

Dear Demetrius:

“Have a good senior season. We’ll be watching you. Get larger.”

Sincerely,

Your friends at the University of . . .

Then, however, came the bad news. Because he had repeated the 11th grade at Calabasas because of academic problems, he was no longer eligible to play sports. California Interscholastic Federation rules allow a student only eight semesters of eligibility in an effort to prevent redshirting, a practice by which a high school athlete would repeat a grade to have an extra season of athletic eligibility.

But Jones and his father, in addition to Calabasas High Principal Bob Ross and other school officials, felt that the rule should not be applied to Demetrius. They argued that the decision to have him repeat his junior year was strictly an academic move, and further argued that at the time of the decision, Jones had never played a single minute of organized sports.

They had another point. Jones, who was born in Chicago, did not attend fifth grade. Chicago school officials moved him from fourth grade directly to sixth grade. His father, Gregory, said the decision was based on Demetrius’ size.

“They told us simply that Demetrius was too big for fifth grade, that he was so much bigger than his classmates they felt he’d be better off in the sixth grade,” the father said. “It seemed pretty ridiculous, but I didn’t know what to do about it.”

Said Ross, who has spent 20 years working in the Los Angeles school system: “I’ve never heard of such a thing, ever. To move a kid ahead a full grade because he’s bigger than the other kids? I’m sure it’s never happened in the L.A. School District.”

Jones, who admits he was not prepared academically for such an advancement, struggled through school year after year. When he moved from Chicago to be with his father in Calabasas, he discovered his classmates were well ahead of him academically. He made it through his first year at Calabasas as a sophomore, but found the going tougher as a junior. His counselor recommended that he repeat the 11th grade, and Ross and other school officials, along with Jones’ parents--who are divorced--quickly agreed.

“The decision was made, that because he was short on credits and we needed to help him with his academic skills, that he repeat the 11th grade,” Ross said. “Athletics never entered into the picture or into any discussions, because he had never participated in athletics. The decision was made not for athletics, but entirely for academic reasons.”

An appeal was filed early last summer with the CIF to grant Jones, now 17, a waiver from the eight-semester rule. It was denied. Southern Section Athletic Commissioner Stan Thomas, who was a member of the four-man board that heard Jones’ appeal, said the decision was an easy one.

“The committee felt very strongly that this rule should be enforced,” Thomas said. “The board discussed the situation thoroughly and voted unanimously to deny the appeal. We recognized Demetrius as a fine young man who unfortunately has exceeded his eight semesters, and that eight-semester rule is one the CIF holds to very strictly. We felt very comfortable in our decision.”

Gregory Jones, who drove his son to the appeal hearing in Cerritos in July, saw a slightly different picture.

“I went to the CIF and I was looking for something, and I got something I’d never gotten before,” Jones said. “I’m a Vietnam veteran. I’ve practically been around the world. And when I went into that CIF office, that was the first time in my life I had ever been treated that cold. Those people were like ice cubes. They wouldn’t even look at me. There was just no response from them.

“When we left that room I told Demetrius, ‘You have just been denied.’ We didn’t get the official denial notice for two weeks, but I knew when we left that room what the decision would be. I knew there was no chance for us.”

In August, Jones hired a lawyer, Keith M. Gregory of Newport Beach, to fight the case. Gregory’s first stop was the state CIF board, but he said a conversation with Thomas ended that approach.

“When I told Stan Thomas we were going to appeal to the state board, he told me flatly, ‘You won’t win,’ ” Gregory said. “I tried to work out a compromise, but he said simply, ‘No.’

“That’s when we decided to take it to court.”

They have a Nov. 5 hearing in Van Nuys Superior Court, at which they will seek a preliminary injunction to prevent the CIF and Calabasas High School from enforcing the eight-semester rule in Demetrius’ case. If such an injunction is granted, Demetrius--who has been allowed to practice with the football team this season except for the first week when the school gained approval from the CIF for him to work out--would be eligible for the team’s last two regular-season games and any postseason games.

Even that might not be sufficient to regain the attention of any major colleges, however.

“I think I have a chance to play this season, but even if I get the chance on Nov. 5 it probably won’t be enough,” Demetrius said. “The season will be gone.”

Still, he shows up for practice every day and works out with the team, never earning the payoff of a Friday night game.

“It’s been tough, knowing you’re not going to play and you’re doing just as well as the other kids in practice,” Demetrius said. “I’m not bragging, but most of the times I’m doing better in practice. The coaches are afraid to compliment me because they know that’s just building my hopes up, and that I’m not going to be playing.”

During the dispute between his son and the CIF, Gregory Jones said his main concern has been not with his son’s potential loss of a scholarship--he and his attorney said there will be no attempt to win a monetary award for any damages--but only with the possibility of his son returning to his old academic habits.

“People ask me why Demetrius never played sports in Chicago,” he said. “And I just ask them, ‘Have you ever been on the South side of Chicago?’ It’s not about playing football, it’s about going out on the field to beat on people’s heads. Demetrius was a big kid, but he was still a kid. The other big kids would always beat on him. He was afraid to go to school and he was afraid to go out of the house. He called me and said he didn’t know what to do, and he asked if he could come live with me. I went right out and brought him back here.

“I knew right away he wasn’t ready academically for this, so we worked and worked and finally we decided that his best chance was to repeat the 11th grade. Then he found football and found he was very good at it, and that changed his whole attitude. He became interested in school, in books. And now, they’re going to take that away from him.”

Demetrius, a quiet young man who only reveals shiny braces on his teeth with an occasional smile, has taken the setback hard.

“Out here they play sports just to compete, to compete and win,” he said. “In Chicago, just by watching other people play sports, they played to hurt one another and to see who could embarrass who. It took all the fun out of the games and I didn’t want to have any part of it. Here, sports is fun. I really enjoyed it. It became very important to me. I found something for the first time that could help me, that could help me direct my life.

“And it seems like they’ve just taken it away from me. It’s all gone now, and it really hurts. It hurts a lot.”