Hammer dropped on Cordia

[JokersWild24]

FORT THOMAS MATTERS: Highlands, NC continue to emphasize integrity in wake of Cordia sanctions

 

Your article mentions that Cordia was able to get a court injunction to overrule the KHSAA's findings and get kids eligible (for a tournament game no less). The article was titled 'Highlands and NCC continue to emphasize integrity'. Remind me, who was the school that started the whole thing where schools were taking the KHSAA to court and getting injunctions allowing kids who'd previously been ruled ineligible to play?

 

Kind of ironic isn't it?

[Wireman]

Wow

[The Professor]

It's like the KHSAA is saying, "Okay, it's a no-no to break any of our rules but if you do make sure it's two or less. Anything more will get our attention. You can definitely count on fourteen violations being addressed! Keep it small and save us a lot of trouble, headaches, and public outcry."

 

 

Actually it's nothing like that at all and you should know better. Very simply put, accusations, innuendo and rumor is NOT reporting to the KHSAA or any other governing body. Whining and complaining on a website about "all the violations" going on elsewhere is just that, whining and complaining. The KHSAA is NOT a preventive body, they are an investigative body once there is something filed worth investigating. Look, I'm not defending the decisions of the KHSAA, Lord knows I've seen some incredibly inept decisions, but you cannot blame an organization for not investigating something where there has never been an official complaint! Joker's far-reaching rationalization of the violations committed by Cordia do not pass the smell test when you examine them closely, and they were REPORTED to the proper agency. These violations are real, not imagined or alluded to by fans. If you have proof of violations at a school then the onus is on YOU to report those violations and then follow up to see that they are acted on. Excusing one's indiscretions because "everyone else is doing it" is the absolute height of hypocrisy. Cordia got what they deserved, as did Fairview, as did Rose Hill and others. If others are breaking the rules REPORT IT. Don't whine about it on a website.

As for the first bolded, I'm not naive about the politics and how things are done at the KHSAA. I saw it first hand when I was involved in athletics at our school before I retired 10 years ago. You can paint it with rose-colored glasses all you want. Some schools get a bigger switch used on them than others. Maybe I'm parnoid but that's my opinion.

 

As for the second bolded, "inept" is a good description. Uneven or inconsistent are words that would work too.

[Rez]

I'm trying to provoke thought and debate about where people draw the line. For some people, the number seems to be 1-2 kids per team, for some it may be more, for some it may be none. Some people factor in how far the kid travels to get there.

I draw the line where a violation has been proven to have occurred. If it can be proven that Knott Central or Scott Co or Trinity or any other school has also committed similar violations (even if it is with less frequency) they should still be punished.

 

Some people think it's when they come. Sorry, I don't really see as much of a different as compared to most when some schools are steering kids their way at the 5th, 6th, 7th grade levels and others move as a junior or senior. In all likelihood, there's technically not really a KHSAA rule with enough teeth to keeps someone loosely affiliated with a school or coach (like say a parent who has a kid that will go there one day but isn't involved in the program in any meaningful way at the moment) from "building" an AAU team and taking care of things so that when things get handed off to the people who are dealing with things at the high school level, they're going to feel like they've been dealt a nice hand. When you've got something like that going on, maybe there's been more than 1 hole plugged.

It is important to note that if kids transfer before high school, their high school eligibility isn’t affected. If it can be proven that recruiting is taking place, regardless of the kids’ ages, this should be punished. Your argument seems to be: since not all violators are caught, none of them should be punished. On a way over the top analogy, that’s like saying we shouldn’t be upset with a murderer and put him in jail because there are other people who have committed murder and got away with it.

 

I am saying that, it's easy to say, "Well, x or y school in Louisville just gets some of the better kids in the Louisville area" and think it's that different than saying "Cordia gets kids from out of state". When you have the population and talent pool that some schools have in their backyard, you shouldn't have to go too far to get kids. Everyone doesn't have that advantage though. I'd like my chances in saying you couldn't even make an All-Star team from the 14th anytime from 1990 to 2010 that would have been the favorite to win State. Maybe some of the years when Ben Bowling was at his peak you could throw in some Hazard kids and randoms or a football player type from Breathitt, but even then, I don't know. That's why I don't really care that they try to load up as much as they can.

It doesn’t matter where the kids come from; it matters if everything is done legally. The reason Cordia was called out for all the out of state and foreign players is because a lot of people couldn’t come up with a reasonable alternative for why that was occurring, unless it was something underhanded. These findings have just validated that form of reasoning. It’s not that it would have been okay if it were only one or two kids from neighboring communities, it’s just that there would have been more reasonable doubt of whether or not violations were occurring.

I think it should be an offense that gets people involved banished from the KHSAA if they knowingly play a 19 year old kid that they're trying to pass off as an 8th grader. Things like that, I am in no way defending.

What about looking the other way when a kid should be ineligible for other reasons (transfer rule, improper benefits, grades, etc)? If a kid should not be eligible to play, does it matter the reason? The ethics of it seem quite similar to me.

 

I'm just saying that people are seeing "14 violations" and freaking out, but I'd bet that you could take a three year period for plenty of other schools "in the game" and find the same number of violations if you had access to perfect information. How many of those 14 violations are things that, if you take them in isolation and apply them to another school, they'd reach the same conclusion?

If that’s the case, those schools should also be punished.

[JokersWild24]

To the above, I understand what you're saying completely.

 

I'm not saying that Cordia shouldn't be punished or that the Rhodes/Bender stuff is squeaky clean. I'm just saying that the 14 violations thing is probably more of a tactic to throw a ton of charges out there to make them spend energy fighting them and looking worse. I'd rather see them nailed to the wall for 3 or 4 charges that were actually serious things than having 14 scattered charges when some of those 14 are things lots of other schools are doing and getting away with. I see it as kind of grandstanding and being all "we're tough on this" and "we won't put up with that here" when the perception is that it's about as believable as some of the reasons that kids are giving for their transfers.

 

If anyone was involved with the Keita accusations and knew about it, then they wouldn't have a job where they were involved in athletics for the rest of their careers if the decision was left up to me. If anyone was involved with violating an "open gym" rule where it was only basketball team members who were in the know about pickup games, it's telling me that there are probably some charges just for the sake of charges.

[Wireman]

Wow.

[JokersWild24]

Wow.

 

Glad I impressed you, but sorry for not being sorry.

 

If Villa Madonna or Louisville Country Day wants to go all SMU and needs to buy Thon Maker and Malik Newman a gold Lamborghini and mansion to get them to come play for them, I don't really care.

 

Personally, I couldn't call myself a UK fan and a guy who has supported the team under Calipari if I didn't. I find it ironic that people who are UK fans can say they are this up in arms about players getting money and clothes, housing expenses, etc. When it comes to the UK comparison, then the age thing, I completely understand that. The benefits and recruiting thing, I don't.

[WalterSobchak]

Joker is truly bringing the laughs in this thread.

[sweet16]

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this before in this thread. But what about the Judge that ruled the two players eligible just hours before the second game of the All A Classic against Paducah St Mary. Do you think he has any remorse now. It was a shock to know that a judge would do this. As a parent of one of the St Mary players, I feel like he also cheated. Any team that played Cordia and lost to them in any elimination game wether it was All A or districts was cheated!

 

 

I thought the same thing

[cahall]

I'll be interested to see if that same judge decides to intervene in this situation. KHSAA may be the ultimate power in sports but the court always has the final decision. If that judge saw no problem and granted a restraining order last time what would keep him from doing it again.

[Lawnboy13]

I'll be interested to see if that same judge decides to intervene in this situation. KHSAA may be the ultimate power in sports but the court always has the final decision. If that judge saw no problem and granted a restraining order last time what would keep him from doing it again.

 

After all the violations, he'd have to be an IDIOT and I would question his abilities to be a judge.

[FRONT OF THE RIM]

I'll be interested to see if that same judge decides to intervene in this situation. KHSAA may be the ultimate power in sports but the court always has the final decision. If that judge saw no problem and granted a restraining order last time what would keep him from doing it again.

I think he moved back to Mississippi after the basketball season, all expenses paid.

[Auxier RiverRat]

I don't like the 25k fine. No reason to take things away from the every day normal student. I'm not in the know but I assume Cordia isn't a financially loaded school.

[AHSPanther23]

I don't like the 25k fine. No reason to take things away from the every day normal student. I'm not in the know but I assume Cordia isn't a financially loaded school.

 

 

I would like to know where the Lotts Creek Community School gets their funding.

[Smallhoops]

I don't like the 25k fine. No reason to take things away from the every day normal student. I'm not in the know but I assume Cordia isn't a financially loaded school.

 

They should have plenty of money to pay the fine since they won't be paying for travel and housing for players and their families on a go forward basis.