Alpha League Will Be Told to Rescind Ban of Montclair Prep : Jurisprudence: Southern Section attorney believes members’ vote to accept ‘voluntary withdrawal’ of Mounties was inappropriate.

An attorney for the Southern Section will advise the Alpha League to rescind its vote to accept the so-called voluntary withdrawal of Montclair Prep from the league, the attorney representing Montclair Prep said.

After discussing Montclair Prep’s status in the league with school attorney Dan Grigsby, Andy Patterson, who represents the Southern Section, agreed that the Alpha League vote last week was inappropriate, according to Grigsby.

Although Montclair Prep remains in the league--at least temporarily--confusion still abounds. Montclair Prep Principal V.E. Simpson insists that the Mounties want to remain in the league and never offered to leave.

However, at a Nov. 25 meeting of league officials excluding Montclair Prep, members voted unanimously to accept Montclair Prep’s “voluntary withdrawal.”

And, as recently as Tuesday, league president Stephen Allen, the Maranatha principal, informed Simpson that the league vote stands. However, if league officials want to oust Montclair Prep, they must reconvene with Montclair Prep officials in attendance and vote again, according to Grigsby.

Allen and Patterson were unavailable for comment Wednesday.

No school has been ousted from a league in his six years with the Southern Section, Commissioner Stan Thomas said Wednesday. If Montclair Prep is voted out, the Mounties will be forced to compete as a free-lance team for the next two years beginning next fall unless they can find another league that will accept them. That prospect seems dim.

The controversy ensued after the section reduced penalties against Montclair Prep in an agreement reached Nov. 21, the second between the parties in seven months.

In April, Montclair Prep admitted to recruiting violations and agreed to a playoff ban that barred the school’s entire sports program from postseason play for this school year. In addition, the football team was banned from the playoffs for two seasons.

But after a key Southern Section witness recanted his testimony against Montclair Prep, the section reduced the penalties. Under terms of that agreement, Montclair Prep agreed to drop a lawsuit seeking to reinstate the football team for the playoffs this fall.

In exchange, Montclair Prep’s football team regained playoff eligibility for next fall. In addition, the school is allowed to seek playoff eligibility for the rest of the athletics program for the winter and spring seasons of this school year. Montclair Prep will seek reinstatement at next month’s meeting of the Southern Section’s Executive Committee.

A key part of the negotiations for that agreement revolved around Montclair Prep’s status in the Alpha League. The school never agreed to leave the league, according to Grigsby.

“We fought long and hard to stay in the league,” Grigsby said. “We could have accepted an agreement that said we would volunteer to leave the league but we didn’t.”

Grigsby has questioned the motives and logic of the league in its vote. He pointed out that after the original agreement in April, the league rejected a proposal to impose additional sanctions against Montclair Prep, allowing the Mounties to compete for league titles in all sports this school year.

As Grigsby noted, that vote was taken before the section reduced penalties against the school.

“They seem to be using the reductions to somehow say that gives them the right to throw us out,” he said. “Now that the Southern Section is reducing its penalty, they want to increase theirs. That’s not right.”