Orlando Olympia Forfeits

Another beaurocratic screw-up. In short, homeschooled player gets approval from Orange County Schools to participate on team after extensive research is done.(was not even allowed to practice with the team until approval was given). Disgruntled fan from another school calls FHSAA who deems player to be inelligible even though all efforts were made to verify by Olympia. Player was courtesy runner in two games that had no bearing on the outcome of the games. Both games were forfeited- but both teams know they were soundly defeated. It's a shame that some adults will try to ruin a young man's desire to better himself at any expense. Shame on you.

Olympia will be stronger because of it!

There is another school that also has a home schooled player in this area. Does anyone really know what the rules are regarding this?

Just want to clarify my last post. The player in question did
enroll at Olympia but the problem stems from being home schooled.

Do not know the rules, but make sure the student gets something in writing from the county as well as FHSAA.

Sad news, indeed.

Olympia has a fine baseball team. It's sad that they would find themselves in this position after clarifying it, in advance, with Orange County Schools.

It's also sad the way we adults tend to handle things. GO TITANS!

Moc1,

Sounds like your athletic director forgot to apply for a hardship with the FHSAA. All he would have had to do was to declare him ineligible before the season starts and take it to an FHSAA hearing where in all probabliity they would have ruled him OK to play. The problem is that the FHSAA does not like it when you do things with them after the fact.

It sounds like the kids have to suffer due to an adults mistake.

The good news is that it happend now -not after the playoffs started. I expect Olympia will do well in the playoffs this year.

Shake it off and good luck the rest of the way.

The player I am referencing has never been enrolled at the school he plays for but does live in the schools district. This is why I am curious about the rules regarding home schooled students participating in public school athletics. It almost seems that any student that is home schooled can participate in any public school athletics regardless of what school district they live in. This could give the impression to parents on a way to get their child into a quality program or ideas to coaches on how to recruit top players.

As Moc1 will tell you homeschoolers are allowed to play in public or private schools. I believe they can play in ANY private school, but only their zoned public school.

However, I'm not totally sure of this so please check the rule before you act on any decision.

From a source I know, I was told the Olympia baseball coaches did nothing wrong - in fact went out of their way to make sure this player was legal. And they did it as a nice jesture for a good young man.

My guess is that the AD was told that Orange County approved everything and left it at that. From what I understand Orange County DID approve everything, but they never got approval from the FHSAA.

My point is that this was an innocent mistake and the kid will eventually be eligible once he goes before an FHSAA hardship hearing. So why punish the rest of the kids for one adults mistake. And why punish a coach (by forfeiting games) for doing something like helping a young man with his life by bringing him onto the baseball team. He should get positive feedback - not forfeits.

Just my humble opinion. If my guess is wrong please don't crucify me. But my point stays the same. A coach was trying to do something good and got in trouble for it. That's not fair.

FBG--You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. No one did anything wrong and actually bent over backwards to make sure this boy was elligible. By the way, how many coaches run their rosters by the FHSAA to make sure they are all elligible? I don't believe there's enough time in the day to verify every player in the state. If a school can't trust the Public School Administration for verification we're in big trouble. And the players are being punished for something the adults did. Go figure!

Unfortunatley, the FHSAA, and NCAA for that matter, can be used by anyone as a hammer. Its too bad.

FHSAA is a group of non-athletic beaurocratic power happy individuals that have never made good common sense decisions on any topic they have to address.

They even butcher the NHSAA national rules and adopt rediculous rules that effect the game itself and the players that participate.

Until FHSAA becomes a representative type of organization where the member schools all have a vote and say....players will always suffer.

I say form an independed organization comprised of HS coaches and AD's and put the bull ****ters running FHSAA out of business.

All they had to do was look at the over all picture of this problem and common sense would lead you to believe everyone acted in good faith. But like someone said above....they some how pissed the beaurocrats off by not asking them first. Big stinkin deal!

Most athletic organizations at the state level only care about revenue and burocracy. Not players.

I'm from Illinois and I'm wondering why I stopped to look at this thread. We've had our share of ineligible players in CHicagoland and it usually is a result of some coach "hoping and praying" rather than asking for a written opinion from the people who pass judgment on eligibility---BEFORE THE KID PLAYS.

Simple solution to continuing "eligibility" problems in Florida.

BEFORE THE KID PLAYS, GET HIS ELIGIBILITY STATUS APPROVED IN WRITING FROM THE STATE ASSOCIATION. NO PROBLEM...THEN.
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Absolutely not ture, kidcaro. I know some people involved as volunteers in thos organizations and they are terrific people and fans of young men and women athletes.

The "problem" is a coach or a parent trying to "get away with something and then they get caught"....When they get caught, they want to blame someone other than their own inadequacies!