It’s not fair … it’s just not fair

John Curtis Christian Academy got in trouble with the Louisiana High School Athletic Association this past week – the first official strike in the armor of the storied program that’s long been the subject of opposing coaches’ suspicions.

As a result of the violations, the Patriots are set to forfeit three seasons worth of wins and the 2013 State Championship.

They’ll also be subject to further penalties and fines if found to be violating the rules again in the near future.

What the Patriots are accused of in the case is a minor violation. If you believe Patriots supporters, the case involves a student-athlete living with a coach in a righteous effort to ease his commute from New Orleans to River Ridge.

But to LHSAA officials and many Louisiana principals, the case shows another example of how private schools bend the rules within the system to gain an unfair advantage that makes it awfully tough to compete within the structure currently in place.

In this particular instance, I side with the LHSAA.

The John Curtis case revolved around Willie Allen – a dominant offensive lineman who enjoyed several seasons with the Patriots and is now at LSU.

According to LHSAA documents, Allen enrolled at Curtis as an eighth grader. He’d bus to the school – a trek that sometimes took up to 30 minutes and three buses, according to the documents.

When Allen got to high school, coaches noticed that he was starting to be late to classes, which Patriots coaches said was beginning to affect his coursework.

To combat that, John Curtis assistant coach Jerry Godfrey made an offer of goodwill to Allen and offered to allow the young lineman to live with Godfrey and his family in their River Ridge home.

With consent from Allen’s parents, the lineman did exactly that and lived with the coach for the remainder of his high school career.

But there’s a problem.

Per LHSAA rules, that’s not legal.

Per the rules, it’s not legal for a school to give an athlete housing in an effort to retain his enrollment.

Sure, Allen was at the school before living with the coach. But per the interpretation of the rule, it was the housing situation that allowed him to be retained, which is regarded as recruiting.

J.T. Curtis and the rest of the John Curtis army lambasted the ruling and said it wasn’t done with a competitive advantage in mind.

The longtime coach read letters throughout the hearing, citing several non-athletes who were offered the same housing situations during their time with the school.

Curtis even read a letter from a River Ridge attorney who said the school deserved an award for what it did for Allen.

Of course, the attorney is an alum of the school who has a vested interest in the program’s continued success, but we’ll save that for another column.

Look, I’m not here to talk bad about John Curtis. I’m not here to say the school does anything more or less right or wrong than any other in Louisiana.

But what I am saying is that the Allen case shows EXACTLY why there is a split in Louisiana prep athletics and EXACTLY why said split is the right thing for the state to have.

Let me explain.

For a student to enroll and compete at a public school, he/she has strict guidelines to follow, and anything besides obedience to those guidelines results in ineligibility and the lost ability to play.

To be a public student athlete, you have to actually be living in the boundary that your school is located.

If you’re in Cut Off, you go to South Lafourche.

Period.

No questions asked.

If you live in Thibodaux, you go to Thibodaux High. If in Bourg, you go to South Terrebonne and so-on and so-forth.

By those measures, public schools are handcuffed into their enrollment arrangement. They play with what they have and if what they have isn’t good, then there’s nothing that can be done to change the situation.

Which is fine, except that private schools don’t have the same rules, which creates the lack of competitive balance.

Private schools can pool anyone from anywhere. They have selective enrollment and can deny a kid admission if they choose to do so.

They can create boundary lines however they please and accept players from all areas.

For example, it’s legal for a kid from Cut Off to caravan to E.D. White or Vandebilt and be eligible athletically, but it’s not eligible for a kid from Thibodaux or Houma to carpool to South Lafourche and enjoy the same luxury.

How is that competitive balance?

It’s not.

How was it OK for Allen to bus 30 minutes to John Curtis, but it wouldn’t be OK for a kid from River Ridge to bus to the city to attend John Ehret?

How is it OK for apples to face oranges in competition when the oranges are watered by a different substance than the apples are?

It’s not.

Look, I hold no ill will toward Curtis. I even concede that by housing Allen, they offered the young man a lot of luxuries he wouldn’t have otherwise had.

And that’s a good thing.

But it’s still only a luxury that private schools enjoy.

And when schools are competing together under different rulebooks, that’s not fair.

Which, of course, is why the split is a good thing for the state – even if I’m the only one in Louisiana who actually agrees with it. •

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