The Class 3A basketball tournaments are moving back to Tacoma, eligibility for transfer students will be determined at the WIAA district level and schools that show a clerical error is unintentional will not have to forfeit games.
Those were three of the decisions made at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association meeting April 25 for the 2008-2009 school year. The Representative Assembly agreed to move the 3A basketball tournaments back to Tacoma from Seattle for the last week of the winter season.
The Class 2A tournament will move from Tacoma back to Yakima in 2009. Also, 2A, 3A and 4A state track meets will be held at Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma and the 1A, 2B and 1B state track meets will be held in Cheney at Eastern Washington University in 2009. This year the 3A and 4A state meets are at Pasco High School, the 1A and 2A state meets are at Mount Tahoma High School and the 1B/2B state meets are at Eastern Washington.
Twelve amendments were also passed including a change in the rules that shifts decisions on transfer eligibility within multiple high school districts to the WIAA district level from the school district level. The Edmonds, Everett and Shoreline school districts are all multiple high school districts so all eligibility hearings for transfers will be handled by District 1.
Also, in what has been referred to as the “Archbishop Murphy rule,” the Representative Assembly agreed to allow appeals of clerical errors in which a player is found to be ineligible and forfeitures result. Archbishop Murphy’s season ended last fall after it had to forfeit nearly all its wins, including a playoff win last fall because a player had an expired physical.
The forfeiture can be now be appealed if the error was unintentional and the school has policies in place to avoid such errors: “In the event of an inadvertent error the school officials may petition the league to have the forfeiture voided. The petitioning school shall have the burden to show the error was not intentional and occurred notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adopted to avoid such an error.”
For the full list of amendments passed, go to www.wiaa.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
