AMHERST, WI. (WAOW TV-WSAU) — The Amherst football team has been declared ineligible for the playoffs and must forfeit all of its victories, according to a press release from Tomorrow River School District (TRSD) on Thursday.
The reason for the ruling from the WIAA was unanimous (9-0 vote) and based on an Amherst football player previously exhausted his athletic eligibility because he participated in football at a different school district in 2018, according to a press release from Tomorrow River School District.
TRSD officials argued that this eligibility issue was not known to the school and could not have been discovered by the school nor its Athletic Director Shawn Groshek via WIAA procedures in place at the time.
“We are extremely disappointed by this unreasonable ruling from the WIAA,” said District Administrator Mike Richie. “The facts in this case make it clear that none of the WIAA processes in place at the time would haveallowed us to discover this situation. As a result, the WIAA is unfairly harming our district, our student-athletes and our entire community. We did everything in our power to attempt to get this unfair decision reversed.”
AD Groshek was advised on Monday, October 10 by the WIAA that the association had received an allegation from an outside, unidentified person of an ineligible player participating on the Amherst varsity football team.
Groshek and TRSD administrators immediately began investigating this allegation and responded with an appeal document to WIAA on October 11. On Wednesday, October 12 the WIAA informed TRSD of its decision andoffered the district the opportunity to appeal to the Board of Control on Thursday. Ultimately, these efforts by the district failed to change the ruling, according to the press release.
The student was home-schooled and played freshman/JV football at a different central Wisconsin school in 2018. He was not enrolled in any classes at the school, according to the press release. WIAA regulations state that a student-athlete may not compete in WIAA sports for more than four consecutive years. As such, this would have meant that the 2021-2022 school year would have been the final year of eligibility for this student.
Neither Groshek nor school administration at Amherst were aware of the participation from the player in 2018 until Oct. 10, the release states.
District officials state that the information that they have on file from SPCA shows that the student-athlete did not play any sports as a freshman there.
The press release also says:
“It appears that the school, which is not WIAA affiliated, only offers basketball as a boys’ sport. He also did not compete in football during his sophomore school year (2020-21) in Amherst. Instead, he played soccer for Amherst in fall of 2020. In 2021-’22 he joined the Amherst football team for his first season of football competition at the school as a junior.”
Amherst football plays Stratford in Marshfield on Friday in what will be the Falcons’ final game of the season. Prior to the ruling, both teams were undefeated in conference play.
Comments