No one wins when it comes to forfeits, especially when teams unknowingly used ineligible players.
The news this week that Placer and Florin had to flush away three and four wins, respectively, is troubling on several fronts. It's a domino effect, impacting many.
I'd bank my career in the conviction that Placer and Florin run clean athletic programs. I know the athletic directors - Mark Lee at Placer and George Smith at Florin - and I know their character and good standing. Excellent leaders in every regard.
Placer didn't realize it had a transfer student from Bethel High in Vallejo who was not "residentially eligible", but some how, someone within the Pioneer Valley League did, and calls were made to the Sac-Joaquin Section office. It's a thankless job for commissioner Pete Saco and assistant John Williams, but they have to follow through on written rules.
It's just too bad such a mess can't be avoided. In other words, why not iron out that snafu before the first league game? Why wait until you lose before blowing the whistle? Placer isn't in the business to cheat, and that's why Lee is sick to his stomach about the news.
And Florin isn't in the business to bend rules, either.
Florin has had years of rotten luck and bad bounces in football. It went 0-10 in 2004 and 1-9 last season. The Panthers enjoyed their 4-2 start, the highlight coming Friday with the stirring upset of Pleasant Grove on a late touchdown.
You would be hard pressed to find a coach who pours his heart and soul into his program more than Mike Morales. He feels for his kids. He cries with them, rejoices with them. Now he's just as angry as they are.
The Panthers didn't know they had a 5th year senior on their roster, and who would think of having one if they did? The player did not compete in sports before this season and he did not attend a comprehensive high school last year. When the nine Elk Grove Unified School District athletic directors meet each month to discuss issues such as tranfers, the player did come up in terms of his residential and academic eligibility. He was deemed eligible in both areas. It wasn't until this week that anyone discovered that the student was in his fifth year.
Pleasant Grove did the right thing in alerting Florin administrators that there was a player in question. Florin did the right thing in investigating it (and Smith was stunned to learn that the student was indeed a fifth-year guy) and reporting it to the section office.
The shame is how the rest of the program suffers.
Still, Morales vows that his bunch will respond. The playoffs are still within grasp. And like Placer, Florin has no shortage of motivation now. Both teams are playing with a real cause now.
