CLEATS CAPER ILLUSTRATES THAT VHSL IS OUT OF STEP

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 30, 1993                   TAG: 9301300271
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CLEATS CAPER ILLUSTRATES THAT VHSL IS OUT OF STEP
The bluster surrounding the Salem-Richlands "cheat cleats" hearing at the Virginia High School League office building on Thursday seemed appropriate.
Apparently, the force of VHSL decisions depends on which way the wind is blowing.
On the same afternoon, Dec. 5, two state Group AA playoff games that linked Salem, the VHSL and controversy brought very different "official" action by the league, which is the state governing body for public-school athletics and forensics.
At the Salem Civic Center, Blacksburg defeated William Byrd for the girls' state basketball championship. After the game, VHSL programs supervisor Claudia Dodson, using the public-address system, excoriated the spectators about their behavior and gave the event's sportsmanship award to semifinals loser Harrisonburg.
At the same hour, Salem was losing at Richlands in the state football semifinals, while - as was revealed at Thursday's protest hearing in Charlottesville - the Tornadoes wore illegal mud cleats. This time, the VHSL Executive Committee proved there certainly isn't strength in numbers, as it voted 21-0 that it's OK to cheat to win a title, because there's no rule that says it isn't.
Dodson, known to be a strong, opinionated administrator, had the right idea on sportsmanship but chose the wrong forum to deliver her message. On the football issue, the executive committee, facing the ultimate in bad sportsmanship - admitted cheating by a coach that compromises the integrity of the game and his school and jeopardizes the safety of students - basically said to Richlands, "Just don't do it again."
In her remarks, Dodson was trying to make an impact on a part of the game that the VHSL or any similar organization really can't do a great deal about - fan behavior. In the Salem protest, the VHSL had hard evidence on what took place on the field. It was provided by Richlands coach Dennis Vaught's admission that he outfitted his team in illegal cleats. The way the day ended, you'd have thought Perry Mason was defending the Tazewell County school.
What happens on the field should be the VHSL's primary focus. Byrd principal Bob Patterson, the chairman of the VHSL Executive Committee, asked Thursday, "How can you prove the [illegal] equipment was the reason that Richlands won the game?" You can't. However, the VHSL was handed a smoking gun by Vaught - and then wouldn't touch it.
The names of the schools and their coaches don't matter here. In making its decision, the VHSL committee said there was no precedent in Virginia or any other state "for overturning" a playoff-game decision. No precedent, no decision. No guts, either. Every precedent had to start somewhere.
If the VHSL cares to look, the NCAA record book is filled with "vacated" teams that lost Final Four berths for rules violations. Here was a chance for the VHSL to show it is more than a "do-nothing" organization, an opinion echoed during the hearing by Salem coach Willis White and underscored when the committee took significant action, but the easy way out.
A few years ago, when it appeared the governance of high school athletics was going to move from the VHSL to the state, the league added two members of the General Assembly to the executive committee. Putting decision-making on sports into the political process wouldn't help the situation.
However, because the VHSL is at least partially funded by tax dollars - it governs only public schools and collects dues from schools based on teams competing - the organization owes the public more accountability. If the VHSL can't provide that, then perhaps school sports should be run from the office of the state secretary of education.
Although Patterson was gracious and open in his responses to the media after Thursday's hearing, the VHSL's executive director, Earl Gillespie, rushed from the building, coat on arm, almost as quickly as the no-commenting Vaught was ushered out the door by a Tazewell County lawyer. The head of the VHSL had no answers. Does the problem start at the top?
There was a riches of embarrassment in the cleats caper. The muddy mess likely never would have left Richlands' stadium if someone from CMT Sporting Goods hadn't given a receipt of the cleats order to Salem. Let's hope that's not business as usual. The Spartans could have come off as sore losers. Sadly, the Tornadoes were victims of their own underhanded coach's gumption and leadership.
Those can be qualities, too, and they are ones the VHSL could use more of in its decision-making.
The league is governed by principals. It is its principles that could use some propping up.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB