By Sarah Nagem
snagem@salisburypost.com
Deciding whether a student athlete is eligible to play sports isn’t always a simple process, officials say.
Guidelines are in place to help coaches and athletic directors. The North Carolina High School Athletic Association lays out requirements. Students must pass at least three of four classes, and they can’t have missed more than 13 days during the previous semester.
And the Rowan-Salisbury School System has its own attendance standards. If students miss more than seven days in a semester, they fail their classes. If they fail, they can’t play.
At least some of these loopholes in the process seem to be at the root of problems for Salisbury High School’s football team. The school was forced to give back four of its 10 wins this fall when the state realized the team had an ineligible player.
A student who misses too many days can appeal the absences, make up missed time at school and pass their classes, said Dr. Walter Hart, assistant superintendent for administration.
A student who has to undergo surgery or whose family suffered a hardship could be candidates for an appeal.
“You have to take it on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Making up the time at school, though, even if it was more than 13 days, doesn’t guarantee a student can play. The school involved could file a hardship appeal to the state athletic association, which could decide to let the student participate, Hart said.
The student who was ruled ineligible attended North Rowan High School last year and relocated to Salisbury High at the start of this school year. His transcript reflected that he had passed three classes and failed one last semester, North’s principal, Rodney Bass, said.
But the student had missed 30 days during the 2007-2008 school year, Bass said. Twenty of those were in the second semester, which pushed the student over the athletic association’s absence standard.
All those absences meant the student would have failed his classes.
“That’s where the waiver committee comes in,” Bass said.
The student appealed his absences to the school’s waiver committee, which determined the absences were “appropriate,” Bass said. So the student ended up with a transcript from North that said he passed three courses.
For some reason, Bass said, the student didn’t make up his absences at North. So even if Salisbury officials would have appealed to the athletic association, the student likely wouldn’t have been allowed to play.
“You can argue over North should or shouldn’t have given the student credit,” Hart said.
But he said there is no argument about whether Salisbury officials should have verified the student’s information. The responsibility of determining a student athlete’s eligibility falls on the coach, and schools’ athletic directors verify everything, Hart said.
Dr. Windsor Eagle, principal at Salisbury, has said school officials didn’t think the student would have gotten credit for his classes if he hadn’t made up for enough absences at North. Eagle did not immediately return calls last week for this story.
Hart said the situation for Salisbury’s football team was an “honest mistake.”
“At this point, the issue is what we can do going forward to keep this from happening again,” he said.
Hart said he plans to talk to high school principals about ways to improve communication when students relocate to different schools.