37 Athletes Found Ineligible From Booker T.
| Updated: 11/05/2009 11:36 am |
Published: 11/04/2009 3:40 pm
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TULSA, OK -- New information in the investigation into ineligible athletes at Tulsa's Booker T. Washington High School.Tulsa Public Schools has determined more than three dozen ineligible student athletes played in six sports, and dozens of games and matches will be forfeited. This comes a week after six students were found to be ineligible due to residency restrictions.
Booker T.'s principal will be reassigned within the district, and allowed to take vacation until a new position is found. The school's baseball coaches will take over as co-athletic directors. An interim principal has been named, and a new assistant principal has also been named. The assistant principal will be Mike Mims, a former basketball standout at BTW. Former assistant principal Geoff Woodson was voluntarily reassigned to Memorial.
Below are excerpts from a press release sent out by Tulsa Public Schools.
The violations to Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association Rule 3, Scholastic Eligibility, will result in the forfeiture of four varsity volleyball matches, including the 2009 Regional Volleyball Championship, as well as a victory against Tahlequah in the state volleyball tournament. Rule 3 infractions will also force the forfeiture of the varsity BTW v. Miami football game.
Among the BTW victories forfeited on October 28 for violations to OSSAA Rule 9, the Hornets would have had to forfeit the varsity football games against Pryor and Hale because of academic eligibility violations. As well, the Hornet softball team previously forfeited three victories that would have been forfeited due to multiple players’ academic ineligibility. A cross country runner was also ruled academically ineligible but no races were impacted in BTW’s favor so no forfeitures were necessary.
TPS’s investigation determined the BTW principal, athletic director and assistant athletic director failed to conduct weekly scholastic eligibility checks as required by OSSAA Rule 3, Section 2a, which states: “Scholastic eligibility forstudents will be checked after three weeks (during the fourth week) of a semester and each succeeding week thereafter. School may choose to run eligibility checks on any day of the week. The period of probation and ineligibility will always begin the Monday following the day eligibility is checked.”
FOX23's Frank Wiley will have more information on FOX23 News at 9:00pm on My41, cable channel 10, and after the World Series on FOX23.
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