Are Forfeits the Answer? : Prep sports: The punishment for using an ineligible athlete can vary from state to state.

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ANAHEIM -- Savanna High School’s baseball team forfeited four victories for using an ineligible player who did not live within the school’s attendance boundaries. Savanna Principal William Wong said the student, a relief pitcher, had used a false address since elementary school in order to attend school with his friends. “It’s very cut and dried,” Wong said. “When you use an ineligible player, you forfeit the games.”

Everyone agrees. There must be rules to prevent ineligible students from playing high school sports.

But when an ineligible student plays, what should be done? Should the student be punished? Should the team? In every case?

In most of California and in 39 other states and the District of Columbia, punishment is virtually automatic: Games are forfeited.

The repercussions can be devastating. Championships can be voided and playoff berths lost.

In these cases, it does not matter whether the ineligible player participated as a result of a clerical error, an administrative oversight or outright deception. If the student played, the team forfeits. Period.

But a Times survey shows that in 11 other states and even in parts of California, forfeits are not necessarily automatic.

In these places, some officials reason that innocent teammates should not suffer for the transgressions of a few and that there should be a more equitable solution.

“If you forfeit their contest, you are in essence punishing the rest of the kids,” said Ed Nash, executive secretary of the Alaska School Activities Assn., where forfeiture is an option, but not automatic.

“If there are circumstances beyond the control of the school, such as (being) provided inaccurate information from another school where (the student) transferred from . . . then it’s usually just a punishment on the student who was ineligible,” Nash said of the Alaskan policy. “We don’t feel the school can be held responsible if (school officials) have diligently tried to obtain the information.”

But innocent teammates are not the only victims of circumstance when an ineligible student plays.

“The innocent kids on the other team are affected, too,” said Thomas Byrnes, commissioner of the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports in the state. “The team you are playing against gets hurt (because it is placed at an unfair disadvantage) when you play an ineligible athlete.” There was no shortage of innocent victims in the case of David Roman.

No one suggested that the 17-year-old Huntington Beach football player did anything wrong on purpose. Nevertheless, when the regular season ended in November, a routine check found that Roman had been ineligible all year.

Although he had transferred from Maryland and resided within the school’s boundaries, Roman was living with his older brother and not his legal guardian, as the rules require. His mother was still in Maryland, trying to sell their house.

Roman said he thought that his brother satisfied the role of guardian. Moreover, it was entirely accidental--a clerical oversight--that Roman’s ineligibility wasn’t discovered before the season, which would have prevented the problem, school officials said.

Nevertheless, the rule is clear. Accident or not, Huntington Beach had to forfeit every game in which Roman played.

Overnight, the Oilers, who had an 8-2 record, went from Sunset League champs, qualifying for the Southern Section Division I playoffs, to an 0-10 team that finished in last place and was disqualified from postseason play.

Even a flurry of court actions by angry boosters was not enough to overturn the ineligibility ruling.

To many in Huntington Beach, it seemed as if everyone had lost--the eligible and deserving athletes, their parents and fellow students, along with the unintentional rule-breaker.

Nearly six months later, at least one Huntington Beach football player still wears a T-shirt proclaiming his school, “The Real Sunset League Champs.”

“The members of this football team are being asked to pay a terrible penalty for a minor clerical error on the part of an administrator,” said Huntington Beach parent, Carolyn Jenkin, who complained after it was disclosed that school personnel were responsible for erroneously listing Roman as eligible. “After all is said and done, what we seem to be left with is a triumph of rules over justice.”

But in the view of CIF Commissioner Byrnes: “We don’t do anything that isn’t just in the CIF.”

Whether it’s justice or injustice, most schools take the same approach in penalizing teams that break the rules, even inadvertently.

In eight of the state’s 10 sections, forfeits are the standard penalty when ineligible athletes play.

There are 11 state associations that operate differently, reserving the right to impose a forfeit, although it is not necessarily the first option. These associations, which govern high school athletics in such states as Washington, Illinois and Alaska, permit officials’ discretion on a case-by-case basis.

For example, the Illinois High School Assn. may issue a warning, followed by censure, reprimand or probation. And the Kentucky High School Athletic Assn.’s rules require the game to be forfeited, unless it is a playoff game.

“Once you get into tournament play you can’t replay or move a team up so . . . we do not require forfeitures . . . because you can’t unscramble an egg,” Kentucky Commissioner Tom Mills said.

In other states where forfeits are not necessarily automatic, associations impose measures such as fines, probation or simply discipline the student rather than his team.

“The feeling is that the punishment should fit the crime,” said Idaho High School Activities Assn. Executive Director Bill Young. “Sometimes it is really no one’s fault. It might have been a computer error.”

If there is no intention to circumvent the rules, no one should suffer, Young says.

Byrnes disagreed. He says forfeits are appropriate penalties, regardless of whether playing the ineligible student was intentional, because the athlete may have made a difference in the outcome of a game.

But how about cases in which the player clearly made no difference?

“Subjectivity . . . is the difficult part,” said Tom Triggs, principal of La Habra High School and a member of the Southern Section executive committee. “When do you say ‘Yes’, and when do you say ‘No’?”

Two state sections have tried to address those questions.

In the North Coast Section, which includes 144 schools in the Diablo area, a forfeit may be set aside when the player’s contribution was negligible, said Commissioner Paul Gaddini.

If, for example, an ineligible player entered a game in the last 12 seconds with his team ahead by 40 points, it is clear he had no effect on the outcome, Gaddini said.

“It can be argued reasonably well that the team that lost did not lose because of the substitute,” he said.

“We’re not trying to mollify feelings with this rule. It is not an attempt to have a compromise or to mediate.

“All we are trying to do is get to the highest level of justice.”

However, Gaddini said, if the ineligible athlete played eight minutes in a game with a closer score, it would be difficult to prove that he had no effect on the outcome.

North Coast Section rules allow a forfeit to be set aside when it is “beyond reasonable doubt that the team using the ineligible player would have won the contest regardless of the participation of the ineligible player.”

The burden of proof is on the team requesting the waiver. The opinions of the other school’s coach and administrators also are sought.

In the past, the North Coast Section took a more liberal approach.

“We used to have a broader (rule) and were a little unhappy with some of the results,” Gaddini said. “In previous years under our old rule, we had games in which ineligible players participated that the forfeiture was waived” based on mitigating circumstances.

“In a couple cases the general feeling was (the forfeit) was incorrectly waived.”

Officials decided to tighten the procedure, but maintain discretion by using the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, Gaddini said.

This year in the Northern Section, which includes 67 schools in the Chico area, officials also opted for an alternative to automatic forfeiture “to make the penalty fit the crime,” said Commissioner Darold Adamson.

“It gives the league principals some discretion,” he said.

A student at Oroville High School played on the football team, but because of an oversight, he did not meet residency requirements. The violation was unintentional, Adamson said.

Instead of forcing Oroville to forfeit, the school was required “to develop a plan for monitoring students and present it to the league for the winter season (and be) placed on probation for two years,” Adamson said.

The residency problem arose after the student’s parents divorced. He moved in with his grandmother in January, but did not participate in athletics that school year, Adamson said. The student’s and grandparents’ last names were the same, so the following fall when he went out for football no one realized he was not living with his parents.

As is the case with most students discovered to be ineligible because of residency, it was school officials who found the problem and brought it to the league’s attention. Moreover, the student’s grandparents had brought the issue to the attention of the school--an indication no one had attempted anything deceptive, Adamson said.

Had the ineligibility been noticed before the season, a hardship waiver might have been granted to allow the student to play, Adamson said. As it turned out, the student was granted a retroactive hardship waiver and permitted to play the team’s remaining two games.

The rule that permitted this discretion is a league rule, not a rule of the Northern Section or the CIF. In fact, the Northern Section has no provisions for forfeits in its constitution, leaving those decisions to its individual leagues.

“That league had implemented a series of penalties and put them in their constitution the preceding year,” Adamson said.

Still, forfeits are the preferred penalty in most sections, including the Southern Section, which encompasses Orange County.

Byrnes conceded that if the ineligible player played the last eight seconds of a 53-0 football game he would not affect the outcome.

Nevertheless, Byrnes maintains that forfeits are necessary because it is impossible to determine how such an occurence would affect the course of a game.

“But if he played in the first eight seconds even though it ended 53-0, who is to say what effect he may have had?” Byrnes said. “He may have made a tackle and accidentally given another kid a charley horse.

“Once he’s played, he’s had an effect on that game. It set into momentum certain forces. That game will never be the same because he played.”

In the San Diego Section, Commissioner Kendall Webb said officials don’t split hairs.

“We don’t say whether it’s appropriate or not,” Webb said. “We just say if you use (an ineligible player) you forfeit the contest.”

“A kid who is a fourth-stringer and his team is leading 49-0 . . . and he goes in, his coach has to forfeit the game (and) every contest that athlete has participated in while ineligible.”

Otherwise, Webb said, “at what point do you say he didn’t contribute that much?

“Maybe on defense he wouldn’t have blocked two conversions. There’s no way to accurately say at what point this person’s contribution was such that we would have to give victory to the other team. The only way to do it is to say . . . all or nothing.”

Those can be painful words.

Four years ago, Bakersfield High won the Valley League football championship in the Central Section. One student, later determined to have been ineligible because of poor grades, played a cumulative five minutes in eight games. As a result, the team forfeited eight victories and had its league championship taken away.

“We discussed a lot of things,” recalled Central Section Commissioner Merritt Gilbert. “But where do you draw the line? This kid probably had no bearing (on the games’ outcome), but I don’t know how to draw it.”

In the 476-school Southern Section, Huntington Beach was not the only team to lose a playoff berth this school year because of an ineligible athlete. Savanna also was booted out of the football playoffs and forfeited six victories for a similar offense.

And in the Sac-Joaquin Section, McClatchy also had to forfeit games because of an ineligible player.

But that case was overturned on appeal.

“Nobody was more surprised than I,” said Sac-Joaquin Section Commissioner Clarke Coover.

Coover initially ruled a player ineligible because both of his parents had not moved with the student within the school’s boundaries.

Residency is required of both parents because “it would be very easy for Papa to go over to get an apartment in another school district (to establish residency) for football season and after football season to move back,” Coover said.

However, the Sac-Joaquin Section’s appeals committee, consisting of three principals, reinstated the student and all the forfeited games.

Although only the student and his father had moved within the school’s attendance area, the committee, after investigation, felt that school officials had no way of knowing that the parents were having marital difficulties and that the mother remained at her home outside the boundaries, Coover said.

The committee reasoned that if school officials had been aware of the situation they could have urged the student to apply for a hardship exception to the residency rule.

The committee’s decision also reinstated McClatchy in a postseason tournament.

“Most violations are inadvertent mistakes of innocence,” said Central Coast Section Commissioner Nancy Lazenby. “Somebody didn’t ask the right question of the kid or the kid didn’t understand, or wasn’t double-checked and got by somebody.”

Nevertheless, Lazenby said, “In our section we really don’t talk about ignorance of the rule as an excuse . . . to make an exception or to waive penalties.”

Nevada Interscholastic Activities Executive Director Jerry Hughes agreed that forfeiture is the only equitable means for dealing with ineligible athletes--even if the player’s performance was incidental to winning.

One reason, Hughes said, is that the ineligible player takes away playing time from an eligible student.

“What’s fair for one kid might not be very fair for another kid,” Hughes said. “If you have someone playing who is ineligible, there’s a kid on the bench who is not being treated very fairly. You have to look at the total situation.”

Times staff writer Dallas Jackson contributed to this story.

Ineligible High School Athletes What officials do when an ineligible student plays. Around the State

Ineligible # of CIF Section Athletes Forfeits Athletes Central Coast 5 5 45,000 Los Angeles 15-20 15-20 30,118 North Coast NA 3 4,500 Northern 1 0 7,000 Oakland 2 12 37,000 San Diego 6-10 6-10 25,360 Sac-Joaquin 1 8 100,000 Southern Section NA 12 250,000 San Francisco 0 0 3,775* Central 1 1 21,000 TOTAL 31-40 62-71 523,753

Ineligible # of State Athletes Forfeits Athletes Alabama 25 29 6,000 Alaska 40 7 10,260 Arizona 8 NA 65,000 Arkansas NA 35 60,000 California 31 62 523,753 Colorado 20 30 121,782 Connecticut 8 25 80,000 D.C. 1 2 600 Delaware 0 0 18,000 Florida 20 60 220,750 Georgia 7 11 150,000 Hawaii 8 9 40,000 Idaho 5 2 30,000 Illinois 15 0 245,000 Indiana 8 20 85,000 Iowa 3 6 35,000 Kansas NA NA 49,422 Kentucky 29 15 50,000 Louisiana 7 7 65,000 Maine 20 16 50,000 Maryland 8 12 75,000 Massachusetts 10 52 160,000 Michigan 50 61 300,000 Minnesota 3 4 120,000 Mississippi 0 0 125,000 Missouri 6 20 112,000 Montana 4 4 26,150 Nebraska 3 0 65,000 Nevada 0 0 50,000 New Hampshire 5 5 27,000 New Jersey 6 5 190,000 New Mexico 50 5 060,000 New York NA NA 396,000 North Carolina 9 15 107,000 North Dakota 2 1 25,000 Ohio 4 7 262,000 Oklahoma 7 3 545,000 Oregon 20 1 560,000 Pennsylvania 20 NA 275,000 Rhode Island 6 7 20,000 South Carolina 5 8 55,000 South Dakota 6 6 33,000 Tennessee 50 70 100,000 Texas 27 24 500,000 Utah NA NA 55,000 Vermont 1 1 27,000 Virginia 6 6 102,000 Washington 17 36 163,000 West Virginia 2 5 32,000 Wisconsin 2 12 100,000 Wyoming 0 0 25,000

Forfeits In the vast majority of high school associations forfeits are virtually automatic. Automatic: 40 Not Automatic*: 11 * Includes Alaska, New Mexico, Kentucky, South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Iowa, Illinois, Georgia, Nebraska and Arkansas.

Reasons for Ineligibility A student can be ineligible in many ways. Residency: 285 Academics: 176 Played too many semesters: 33 Other: 50

Researched by Dallas M. Jackson

Source: State high school associations around the nation