A rule book that makes no room for compassion

Published 12:20 am Sunday, November 11, 2007

EVERETT — This is my 21st year in journalism.

I’ve seen a lot. I’ve stuck my nose into my share of indignities. Over the years, I’ve written about a high school coach fired for having sex with one or more of his student assistants; about prep coaches looking the other way while upperclassmen physically and mentally abused younger athletes; about drug and alcohol use among high school student-athletes.

We read of private parties paying a high school football coach in excess of $50,000 a year. We read and hear reports of schools recruiting big-time athletes, who shop themselves around like supermodels sashaying up and down a runway. We read of athletes moving from school district to school district, crawling out onto the most precarious branches of the rules that cover acceptable guardianship, so they can attract maximum attention of college scouts.

It stinks. All of it.

But Friday’s news that Archbishop Murphy High School’s football season is history is baffling beyond belief.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association upheld a Cascade Conference and District 1 ruling that pulled the plug on the Wildcats for using an ineligible player.

Considering the extraordinary and atypical circumstances surrounding the issue, all three governing bodies failed in spectacular fashion in doing the right thing for its young people.

When it comes to eligibility issues, the WIAA paints the canvas with a wide brush. “Eligibility” is a buzz word on which the organization’s executive board robotically slams a rejection stamp.

“They just don’t budge when it comes to eligibility issues,” interim coach Rick Stubrud told The Herald in its Saturday editions.

By the time Friday ended, after ATM officials appealed to the WIAA and later to a court commissioner, Stubrud, his players and school administrators had to face the fact that their already heartbreaking season was finished.

It was done before the third-ranked, 10-0 Wildcats had lost a game. It was done even though they had dispensed of Bellingham, 28-6, in a preliminary playoff game a week ago Saturday.

Talk about a rough year.

At the beginning of the season, they’d lost their beloved head coach, area legend Terry Ennis, after a long fight with prostate cancer. Now, in dedicating the season to Ennis’ considerable memory and influence, it was as though they’d never played a game.

So immovable are the bodies that govern area prep sports from their hard and fast rules that they’ve forgotten to judge every circumstance independently and with sensitivity. How does this ruling serve young people by crushing their season through no fault of their own?

What can we tell these kids? That life isn’t fair? That it’s an imperfect world? That this is a test of their faith?

These kids aren’t stupid.

The only truth that they need to know is that those responsible for the operation of prep athletics in the region and state couldn’t manage a marbles tournament.

In reacting to the mishap, ATM officials did everything right. They’d discovered this week, while going through records for the winter sports season, that a player’s physical examination had expired Sept. 8.

They remembered. The plan at the time was to clear it up by Sept. 9, the day following what turned out to be Ennis’ final game. But as worries about Ennis’ health grew, the correction fell through the cracks.

Another deterrent was that the athletic department was in the middle of reorganizing, having moved into a new building Labor Day weekend.

ATM officials correctly reported the problem to the Cascade Conference on Thursday. Conference officials followed the WIAA guidebook and ordered ATM to forfeit all games in which the player participated. The District 1 board upheld the ruling, as did the WIAA.

It’s difficult to believe those in power listened — really listened — to ATM’s side of the story.

Did they hear that the prevailing focus and worry was on Ennis, that his cancer had reached the final stages, that he had days left, at the time of the deadline? Didn’t they understand there was no intent to skirt the rules?

At worst, the school is guilty of sloppiness. At worst.

Compassion, we can clearly see, means little.

Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. To reach Sleeper’s blog, go to cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/danglingparticiples.