CIF Says Gabriel Boettcher, at 19, Is Too Old to Play Ball

Gabriel Boettcher turned 19 on June 2, and that’s the problem.

Boettcher, who was born in the West African nation of Liberia, will be a senior student at Fullerton High School when the 1987-88 school year begins. He also would like to be a senior athlete, but there is a CIF rule that forbids any person whose 19th birthday falls on or before Aug. 31 to participate in interscholastic sports.

Boettcher and his father, Harvey, have appealed the rule twice--once to Southern Section commissioner Stan Thomas and again to a Southern Section executive committee--but they failed each time to get a favorable ruling. They say they will appeal to the CIF office, but they have not received a date to appear before a state board.

Thomas says the CIF’s age requirement (rule 201 of the Southern Section’s bylaws) is to guard against student-athletes being held back a year in school to, in effect, redshirt them and increase their chances of obtaining a college athletic scholarship.

But Gabriel Boettcher is not a great athlete. He has participated in football, soccer, water polo, swimming and wrestling in his three years at Fullerton, but he has never been a star. The only thing awaiting him after high school, as far as athletics is concerned, is memories.

“I’m not a great athlete by any means,” he said. “I have to work hard at every sport. But I enjoy it, because that’s how I met people in America. That’s how I learned to communicate and make friends. It’s always been fun to play, so it’s kind of hard for me to understand why anyone would want to take that away from me. This is my last chance to be with my friends.”

Boettcher lived in Liberia with his mother, Catherine Williams, until he was 8. He then moved to Fullerton to live with his father.

Boettcher did not attend school until he moved to Fullerton. When he enrolled in the first grade at age 8--most first-graders are 6--he had a limited knowledge of English and suffered from dyslexia, a reading disorder.

Boettcher worked through the difficulties, progressing at a normal pace.

“We were advised by research specialists to keep him with his class,” Harvey Boettcher said. “Gabriel wants to go to college. We didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. . . . Sports were an important part of his schooling. It made him happy to go to school every day.”

Thomas said that he can sympathize with Boettcher but that he and the executive board are concerned that if they make an exception for one 19-year-old, there would be a stack of requests from other 19-year-olds who have been held back because of learning disabilities.

“I have a lot of sympathy for Gabe,” Thomas said. “I was personally very impressed with the young man, but, unfortunately, the system doesn’t allow for what he wants. If we were to grant him his wish, we’d be setting a precedent, and pretty soon we’d have more than a few requests from other kids like him.”

One of the Southern Section’s main concerns is the legal implication if Boettcher, who is 6-feet 2-inches tall and weighs 195 pounds, should injure someone during a game.

“Can you imagine what an attorney would do if he found out there was a rule prohibiting individuals over 19 years from playing?” Thomas said.

Harvey Boettcher said he offered to limit Gabriel to non-contact sports such as swimming, but Thomas refused.

“We’re trying everything we can to accommodate them,” Harvey Boettcher said. “We had (Fullerton High principal) Sally Gobar speak for him in front of the Southern Section board. We’ve offered to change sports . . . but I’m getting the feeling now that we’re just wasting our time. But we will follow this through as far as it goes.”

So for now, Gabriel Boettcher must wait.

“I thought my senior year would be the best,” he said. “But now, I don’t know. School won’t be nearly as fun. It’s cheating me of my four years. I can understand it if you fail a grade, but I didn’t. I can’t see who this helps. It only hurts me.”