Dream stealers

 The rules are clear and the penalties severe.

- Former IHSAA commissioner Gene Cato

Oh, if only that were so, Gene, wherever you are in the heavens above. If only that were so.

I covered high school sports in Indiana for 40 years, and in that time I heard Gene's famous quote more times than I can count. It was intended to illustrate the IHSAA's strict adherence to fair play and intolerance for the shenanigans that were the enemy of fair play. Unfortunately the reality has always been far more complicated.

Which is to say, the rules are only clear to the IHSAA, and far more malleable than Gene let on. And if the penalties are indeed severe, they can also be thoughtless, and the very antithesis of fair play.

Black-and-white adherence to black-and-white rules only works when there are no shades of gray. And, buddy, life is every shade of gray you can imagine.

Don't know if you've read this, or if the paywall will allow you to, but down in Indianapolis one of the best journalists in the state -- Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star -- posted a meticulously reported story about an extremely gray situation at Indian Creek High School in tiny Trafalgar. It's an ugly story that involves the IHSAA and its rulebook, school administrators, and  a petty old boy network that protects its own at the expense of the kids whose interests it allegedly serves.

You can read it here, if the paywall lets you. If not, allow the Blob to give you the Reader's Digest condensed version. 

It's all about a pretty good high school linebacker named Kohlton Scoggan, who dreamed of perhaps getting a small-college football scholly so he could afford to go to school. He was a member in good standing of Indian Creek's football team until one of the assistant coaches got caught sending creepy Snapchat messages to Scoggan's 15-yer-old sister. After the family quite understandably took out a restraining order against this garden slug, Scoggan was suddenly persona non grata.

According to the family and some of Scoggan's teammates, the head football coach started trying to smear the kid, to the point of coercing some team members to sign statements accusing Scoggan of destroying a mailbox. He apparently didn't do it -- his teammates were making light of his fallen status by basically joking "I bet Scoggan did it" -- and even the school agreed.

Yet it added fuel to a situation that had become untenable. And so, in February, Scoggan transferred to Greenwood for his senior year.

Indian Creek officials immediately contested his football eligibility. Despite the obvious pettiness of this, the IHSAA backed the school's play and declared him ineligible for football. The rules are clear, remember?

Except ...

Except, not really.

As the Blob noted, there's always been a certain capriciousness to that hallowed rulebook, especially where student transfers are concerned. I remember a particular instance from decades back where a standout girl swimmer at Anderson High School transferred to Carmel, allegedly because her dad had taken another job. It was only the purest coincidence that she was transferring to a high school with the state's best girls swim team.

The IHSAA said okey-dokey to that.

It told Kholton Scoggan to take a flying leap, even though the circumstances practically screamed for a little discretion. Not to say compassion.

Apparently, however, that's not in the IHSAA rulebook. Nor, apparently, is it in the hearts of the alleged educators at Indian Creek High School, who contested the kid's eligibility to begin with out of what seems nothing more than childish spite. 

Trying to steal a kid's dream instead of helping it come true: Half my family members were educators, and yet somehow I don't remember that being part of their job description. Perhaps I was misinformed.

Instead, I'm left only with Gene Cato.

The rules are clear, and the penalties severe.

Well. At least he got the second part right.