Terry Sanford Football Logo
Nov 16, 2009
The athletic director for Terry Sanford High School told a judge Monday that questions arose about a football player's eligibility after his report card showed a passing grade in English.
Those questions are at the heart of a dispute over his team’s season and playoff prospects.
Cumberland County Judge Jack Thompson, a 1959 graduate of Fayetteville High School, now known as Terry Sanford, heard from attorneys for parents of players at the school and the NCHSAA a second time Monday to determine if the team gets to go on in the 4-A state playoffs.
One week ago, the Fayetteville school self-reported an eligibility violation to the N.C. High School Athletic Association. That led the NCHSAA to order that the team forfeit its nine wins and give up its playoff berth.
Parents of football players went to Cumberland County Judge Jack Thompson, who a granted a temporary injunction allowing Terry Sanford to play Saturday. The Bulldogs defeated Pine Forest, 49-28, to advance to the second round of the playoffs. They are scheduled to play New Hanover on Friday.
Lee Spruill, athletic director at Terry Sanford, said the player, Malichi Mills, may have not passed an English class he was supposed to, but Mills' final report showed that he had earned a passing grade at Cumberland Evening Academy.
Jody Hawley, director of information technology for the Cumberland County school system, testified on Monday that Mills' final grade in his English 3 course last school year was 54, as of June 23. On June 30, Hawley said, the grade was changed to a 78.
“Somebody manually had to override that,” Hawley said. It was unclear why the change was made, but Hawley identified Pam Stone, a guidance counselor at Douglas Byrd High, as the person who changed the grade on June 30.
"No, his grades were not tampered with. There is more to the story than is being told in there," Mills' mother, Ethel Johnson, said Monday.
As to the grade change, Cumberland County Schools Director of Activities Fred McDaniel said “it has no bearing on his eligibility. He missed too many days of school.”
Records show Mills was suspended for eight days last semester from the Cumberland Evening Program, and nine days from Terry Sanford High School.
One point of contention in the hearing centered on an agreement made by now-former principal Diane Antolak and the attorney for the Cumberland County Board of Education with Mills’ mother, Ethel Johnson. It agreed to expunge the disciplinary record against Mills for the 2008-2009 record, but it did not expunge his absences.
“You do not expunge absences,” McDaniel said. “You’re expunging the disciplinary record.”
Attorneys for members of the football team pointed out that Mills was disciplined through suspension and questioned why the absences wouldn’t be expunged as well.
David Phillips, the attorney for the school board, said “I don’t believe you can expunge an attendance record. It would create a false record.”
The attorneys suggested that if the suspension absences were expunged, then he would have been eligible to play football. The state requires that a player not miss more than 13.5 days of class.
Thompson scheduled the hearing to resume Tuesday at 10 a.m.
If he determines Mills was ineligible, Terry Sanford will have to forfeit its nine regular season wins and its playoff victory from Saturday. The Bulldogs would be kicked out of the playoffs, and they would have to return all money made from Saturday's playoff game.
NCHSAA executives Rick Strunk, Que Tucker and Charlie Adams made the trip to Fayetteville Monday morning with their lawyer.
“Decisions like these should be made on the football field, not made in some board room, and not made in some court room,” Jim Arp, Terry Sanford Booster Club president, said.
“It is not their fault. They shouldn't have been pulled out of the playoffs in the first place,” Ethel Johnson, mother of a player, said. "They deserve to be out there on the field doing what they do."
If Terry Sanford does not come out of the court proceedings on Tuesday with a win, Pine Forest will not be permitted to move on to the second round. Instead, New Hanover would get a second-round bye to the third round.
Diane Antolak, principal since 2006, was suspended with pay last week and is being investigated for possibly tampering with the transcripts of student athletes. She was still an employee of the school system Thursday, spokeswoman Wanda McPhaul said.
Mindy Vickers, the principal of Cross Creek Early College High School, was named to replace Antolak at Terry Sanford.
(HighSchoolOT.com Editor Nick Stevens and WRAL.com Web Editor Kathy Hanrahan contributed to this story)
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