A closing thought on the Clarkston football forfeit issue;

Reported first here at the Oakland Press on Monday night; Props to us!!!

On a final note

Clarkston kept up its end of the bargain by adhering to the MHSAA’s self-report guidelines, now it’s time for the state’s governing body itself to take a look at a clearly flawed system of policing the prep sports landscape.

In cases like what happened with the Wolves football squad, the self-report system is a necessity – there is no possible way for the MHSAA to keep tabs on the grade eligibility of every student in the state that decides to participate in varsity sports.

However, in many other cases the very concept of self-reporting is outright ridiculous at a fundamental level and a big reason why there is so much blatant undermining of the rules in this area’s high school athletic scene.

Let’s not fool ourselves, 90 percent of the transfers each year in football and basketball are without a doubt athletically motivated. Under MHSAA rules, the student would have to sit out a full school year of varsity competition, as opposed the normally required single semester of sidelining.

This literally NEVER happens. The reason why is that who is going to self-report these transfers? The school’s AD or head coach, who are standing to benefit greatly in the win-loss column by the situation?

Or what about the school who got spurned and lost the kid? Are they supposed to report it? I suppose so, however, I can understand not doing such a thing for fear of being ostracized within the coaching profession and looking like its simply sour grapes.

When Jack Roberts, the longtime president of the MHSAA was asked recently by a local news outlet why he didn’t look into the Oak Park transfer situation – two dozen Inkster football players leaving mid-school year last January to follow former Inkster head coach Greg Carter to his new job with the Knights –, he responded because Inkster, nor Oak Park themselves ever reported the incident.

Well, Oak Park certainly wasn’t motivated to admit these 24 new students came on board at the school due to its gridiron program and recent hire as coach, and accordingly, it was never reported.

Inkster didn’t feel compelled to blow the whistle either, mainly because Carter had almost single-handedly saved the school from closing, when in his tenure with the Vikings enrollment more than tripled in size. If anything they were thankful he was ever there in the first place and wished him well in his new endeavor crosstown. As a result, nothing was ever reported and no investigation was ever done.

As much as I think Carter is the best thing that could have ever happened to the Oak Park student body – he’s the ultimate authority figure and in a lot of cases a father figure in a building that desperately needs discipline and structure – it‘s a bit of a joke this situation was never, at least, looked into by the MHSAA. I mean, it doesn’t get more blatant than what transpired last winter, with the mass Inkster-to-Oak Park football migration of 2011.

Note to MHSAA – GET ON THE BALL NOW, things are already starting to spiral out of control with the transfer epidemic.

Clarkston is taking a massive hit for being good guys in a bad situation. But there are still too many situations out there that are going unchecked and it shouldn’t be that way. More importantly, it doesn’t need to be that way because Roberts and the MHSAA have the power to change things by simply using common sense.

If something looks shady, it probably is and should be subsequently monitored and addressed.