This is a story about rules, cheating, bureaucracy, outrage, honor and tuffies.
It’s tuffies this year for the Eaglecrest Raptors football team. After a 3-6 season, the Raptors were going to slide into the state football playoffs, thanks to a complicated formula that made them team No. 30 of 32 teams moving into the next phase of the state football championship.
They don’t get to compete in the playoffs now.
The reason will surprise you as much as it angers Raptors coach Mike Schmitt and his team, their families, and me.
Their season is over because another team, Highlands Ranch, cheated this season, and because the state’s governing athletic association has no way to deal with unexpected and improbable things that happen in a world where unexpected and improbable things happen all the time.
Eaglecrest got crushed by the cruel law of unintended consequences this week after Highlands Ranch called officials at the Colorado High School Activities Association to say that, oops, they’d planted an “illegal communication device” in their quarterback’s helmet so the coach could better steer the plays, just like they do in the NFL. Such devices are prohibited in high school ball, which apparently everyone but Highlands Ranch coaches knew. So after playing the entire season like that, going 3-and-6 and pretty much getting caught, team officials called CHSAA and said they’re sorry, and that they’d forfeit their wins this season, giving them (in essence) a 0-9 record for the season.
CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann lauded the team for ‘fessing up and doing the right thing by trying to make good after making bad. But there’s still one more game to play. Rather than ban the team for that last game, Highlands Ranch will play. That’s only fair to their scheduled opponents, who had nothing to do with the Falcons’ oops-gate gaffe, and shouldn’t be penalized for their mistake.
Eaglecrest isn’t getting the same courtesy. Currently, CHSAA allows 32 teams to make the playoffs, including a handful of wild-card teams based on the state’s points system. Last week, Eaglecrest was in. But when Highlands Ranch changed their own record to 0-9, that affected the complicated formula that got Eaglecrest into the playoffs and dropped the Raptors to No. 33.
Highlands Ranch cheated and then had its own record changed before the end of the regular season, and Eaglecrest gets punished.
Sound fair to you? No. And you can bet that just about every one of the state’s 50 football coaches would agree that the decision to make Eaglecrest pay for another team breaking the rules is wrong. In an era of using instant replay to right wrong calls, this is all wrong.
Borgmann sympathizes with Eaglecrest. And this is a really nice man who has a serious sense of fairness and deep passion for high school athletics. But as an administrator, he says his hands are tied because his job is to make sure the state plays by the rules. No one dreamed this blunder would happen, and, unfortunately, underlying a society built on laws and rules, the law of unintended consequences really rules everything.
This isn’t the first time Aurora or other teams statewide have been sacked by CHSAA’s inflexible rules. In 2013, the winning Regis Jesuit girls basketball team — maybe the best prep girls team the state has ever seen — was invited to go play in a televised tournament in New York, all expenses paid. It was a fabulous opportunity they had to turn down because it was at the end of the season and CHSAA says teams can’t play after the season ends, even if it’s just an exhibition game and has no effect on anything else. Borgmann sympathized with Regis then as well, and he enforced the rules are rules. Tuffies for them, too.
This all sounds pretty stupid to me, too. CHSAA must create an emergency panel to hear issues like this and make temporary accommodations so that the rules are just and make sense. Borgmann says CHSAA is looking at the notion, but he worries about how to operate it so that it really is fair. He points out that governing bodies like the state Legislature regularly create all kinds of laws with unintended consequences, and we all have to wait for bad rules to get fixed.
No. Outside of CHSAA, we have a system of courts that can impose injunctions against bad laws.
Of course this is all too late for Eaglecrest, which gets tuffies because of CHSAA’s failings. But they win because they pointed out a flaw and injustice in the system without being whiners about it. That makes them winners in the eyes of lots of people. Eaglecrest learned good lessons about being good sports, right? But this isn’t winning. Winning feels good. It’s tuffies, and it’s wrong.
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I’m sure Mr. Borgmann is a conscientious and dedicated administrator, but a non- thinking/ rigid adherence to ‘Rules’ translates into throwing common sense and good judgment out the window. Our ‘zero tolerance’ policies in our schools result in many administrators not engaging in ‘critical thinking’ role modeling for our kids and, instead, hiding behind the ‘Rules’. Glad that Eaglecrest is handling this in a classy manner for their students.
what dose borgmann,and his little band of nuts really do for our kids in Colorado?
I feel bad for the players of Eaglecrest but be honest, they don’t deserve to go to the playoffs. Make it by winning on the field, not sneaking in by some weird formula that allows them in while leaving someone else out. How many bad Aurora teams do you want in the playoffs? HR knowingly cheated and when they were about to be called on their cheating ways, they “self reported” to save face. The whining in this article wouldn’t be heard if Eaglecrest won more games. Plain and simple. If you win THREE games out of nine you shouldn’t be in the playoffs period. And if you must complain, ask how a bad Overland team is in with an identical record but WORSE league record! Why even count league games then!!
I do applaud the effort by the players and coaches of Eaglecrest and Overland, my comment was about the whining in the article, not by the schools, players, fans or coaches. Also, I applaud the HR players who had to play under a coaching staff that knowingly cheated their kids and their school.
Playing for Eaglecrest 3 years ago, we had a 5-3 record, we would of barely made the play-offs just like this year. But instead we busted the door open and beat one of the top teams (cherry creek) before the play-offs. This placed us at 17th in the rankings. I am unbelievably hurt by this news and it sucks not being able to perform in the play-offs. However, knowing this year there are so many young sophomores starting varsity. You have many more chances to show you belong in the play-offs. Don’t let a simple equation decide your fate. I agree with Slammin when it comes to a team that has 3 wins should not be in the play-offs. You have to go out on the field and prove that the raptors are the one of the top colorado teams in 5A.
I love the cartoon associated with this article. It is so right on. Lets hope we can complain enough to somehow get their heads out of their A** to start looking into more of these issues and do what is right for all Colorado High Schoolers. Maybe they can start by looking at Highlands Ranch Girls Basketball Team which ‘recruits” like no other. How do you have a kid from Wyoming on your team who lived with team players and coaches while her parent(s) still remained in Wyoming?? At a loss for the incompetency of CHSSA. Maybe someone can actually dig a little deeper on this issue as it may still be relevant. I am sure there are a lot of transfer players out there who would love to discuss Jarocki and here stretching of the rules. A majority of their team is not from her district and from her CLub team but it is not considered recruiting?