THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 2, 1995 TAG: 9511020546
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
When classes let out Wednesday at Booker T. Washington High School, Larry Stepney was in the hallway as usual, selling cookies for his football team. A few players straggled by, tossing down a dollar for a snack before practice.
It seemed a normal afternoon, noisy, jocular. Even if you looked hard, you couldn't tell that the world had crashed down around Stepney and his kids.
Monday, the Bookers were on the way to perhaps a 9-1 record, a second consecutive Eastern District title and the playoffs. Memories to savor a lifetime.
Wednesday, they were a 2-6 team with broken hearts, and two games left in a season they now will never forget for one haunting reason.
Adults they trusted messed up. They broke a minor rule and the Virginia High School League, which governs state athletics, made the Bookers pay. With no room for discussion, the VHSL applied its only penalty for a team that uses an ineligible player; forfeiture of the five wins in which the player, a long-snapper for punts, participated.
Stepney will have other teams. Booker T. football, resurgent in Stepney's four seasons, will have other grand moments. But this team, these seniors whom Stepney tutored with just this season in mind, will have a void. Always.
``Building this team was almost like putting patches in a quilt,'' Stepney said. ``I saw how these kids had grown in three years. I said, `This year, we're gonna be the talk of the town.' ''
And they were. And still are, though sadly now.
``They were already close. This has brought them closer,'' Stepney said. ``When I turned the corner to go to the meeting the other day, I saw the captains embracing the young man. Then he went from one player to the next. It brought tears to my eyes.''
The crime: the kid's parents live in Norview's zone but because of family problems he lives with an uncle in Booker T.'s zone. Situations like this demand the VHSL's executive director be contacted to grant eligibility.
Stepney, athletic director Charles Harvin, principal Joel Wagner, everybody missed the rule. When somebody at Norview blew the whistle, that was that.
``Anytime you have a penalty that impacts kids, certainly you have empathy for them,'' said VHSL assistant director Larry Johnson. ``But our job is to interpret the rules, that's all we can do. The schools themselves make the rules and regulations.''
It's difficult to get a grip on them all, though, and impossible to ensure total adherence on the issue of residence. Kids say they live at such-and-such address; how can that be positively verified short of a stakeout?
Tell me ineligible kids aren't playing throughout the area. I'd like to think most are doing so without their school's knowledge. But it happens, always has.
Already this year, Booker T. caught a break when a player lied about his address but, on appeal, the VHSL surprisingly overturned the forfeit. This time, though they clearly weren't trying to cheat, the Bookers simply got caught.
So maybe they'll appeal. A petition signed by hundreds of students will be submitted, and parents might call the VHSL. I doubt it will matter. This was administrative oversight, by decent people with a thankless task.
But what I can't stop thinking about is, 20 years from now, how much that's still going to hurt the Booker T. team of 1995. by CNB