Edina will forfeit six football victories
Posted on July 1st, 2009 – 2:01 PMBy John Millea
The MSHSL has informed Edina High School that it will forfeit six football victories from last season (and one track meet this spring) due to an ineligible player participating.
As we reported here a few weeks ago, the administration was not aware the athlete was ineligible. The Hornets finished 6–4 with victories over Fargo South, Minneapolis Washburn, Armstrong, Mahtomedi, Stillwater and Minneapolis Southwest.
Long after the football season ended (in April, to be exact), Edina officials learned that an ineligible athlete had played in all the football games and a track meet. The situation appears similar to what happened at Mahtomedi in the midst of last season, when administrators learned that a transfer student should have been ruled ineligible before the season began and the Zephyrs had to forfeit five victories (they were 6-1 at the time). Edina beat Mahtomedi 29-26, so that game should now go down as a win for Mahtomedi; the Zephyrs’ ineligible player participated in all games before that one.
According to the school district, the error involved the athletic department not identifying a transfer student as being ineligible to compete in varsity competition. The student disclosed everything correctly during the registration process, and activities director Jenny Johnson said it was the department’s oversight.
“The district regrets making the error and the impact our mistake had on the individual student and involved teams,” Johnson said. ”We have enhanced our athletic-registration process to ensure such a situation does not occur again for our program.”
John Millea is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/stribjohn
17 Responses to "Edina will forfeit six football victories"
No wonder Jenny Johnson resigned, under this cloud of shame, as Edina athletic director, whilst the Edina head football slipped out of town for Sioux Falls. Edina won those games by playing an illegal transfer player. Incredible that something like this could happen! I hope the MSHSL places a letter of censure in Johnson’s jacket. This revelation is all the more revealing when we look back at the StarTribune article (http://www.startribune.com/sports/preps/28625284.html?elr=KArksUUUU) of Sept 19 extolling how precious it is that the secretary in the Edina athletic office is drawing up plays for the Edina football team. Looking back, we can see how much the Edina athletic office was unfocused this past school year. Good luck to the new regime that has to clean up this mess.
The Edina athletic department is in a free-fall crisis. If I lived there, I’d transfer my kid to Blake, Breck or Benilde. What a mess.
Mr Watts, if “Edina won those games by playing an illegal transfer player”, why would this person have not played in all of the games or track meets?
Don’t really follow Questioning’s question as it is a matter of established fact that Edina had an ineligible player playing in all 10 football games and 1 track meet. The penalty is assessed by taking away the 6 football wins and the 1 track victory. Not sure what you would want assessed against the 4 football losses. Perhaps a noogie for each of the 4 losses. Suspect that the ineligibility of the player was identified after 1 track meet this spring and any further participation in additional track meets was curtailed.
I had Jenny Johnson as a High School math teacher. She was the best.
Good luck Jenny!
What a bunch of BS..so a kid transfers in..loves playing sports but because of some rule is not allowed to participate for a year and then on top of that the whole team suffers the consequences of a mistake made by the administration……BS..who makes up these rules
There is no way anybody can say that Edina won those games only because they had an ineligible player. It’s entirely possible that the ineligible player participated on one or two plays at the most and didn’t even affect the outcome of the games in question. Since the player is not named, and records of plays/players are not kept, the only thing you can say for certain is that an administrator messed up.
Also, nobody can tie the coach’s departure with this incident. Maybe he had a better offer in Sioux Falls, or maybe that is his home town, etc. Since he wasn’t interviewed for the article, nothing can be surmised about his departure.
This was a paperwork snafu, not an attempt to “beat the system.” Don’t be reading more into it than there is.
Sounds like simply a screw-up. Glad I am not hammered for a mistake such as some people here are hammering Edina staff.
In addition, no, I am not a cake-eater apologist.
This should not have happened, but mistakes occur. I like the transfer rules (I am against open enrollment).
Umm…so take away all their victories last year…who cares??? Does it matter? It isn’t like they won state or the MSHSL is taking anything material away. Like anyone remembers what happened last season anyway…only people that care are the one’s with the jobs that are in a position where W-L records do matter (i.e. ADs, coaches, etc)…come 2009 everything that happened in 2008 will be in the past. Comical really because the kids won’t care which is what it is all about anyway.
What is the point of forfeiting the wins? Is that really a punishment towards the school for using an ineligible player? It just changes the record books and that’s about it. Big deal!
Dan Bowman
First - identifying the kid involved is cheap. In no way was this his fault.
Second - this was the first year under the new transfer rule, which would explain the mistake. Remember Mahtomedi made a similar mistake and their AD has been around a while and is pretty well respected in AD circles. Yeah, it was a mistake, but it was no reason to fire anyone and as far as I know, no one was fired because it it.
Some of you are unbelievable. It was an administrative mistake. The kid’s transfer paperwork was placed in the wrong pile and was overlooked until it was caught by the AD’s office in April and at that point they self reported to the MSHSL. No one outside of Edina caught this or reported it. You all are willing to throw Jenny under the bus and accuse Edina of cheating. It was an honest mistake. The kid was a special teams player and played 10-12 plays per game. Again, the kid did nothing wrong and unfortunately, he is made to look like a criminal. Also, Kim Nelson moved back to Sioux Falls because he and his wife are from Sioux Falls. He has 2 grown sons that live there and they wanted to go back. He did not resign because of the forfeits. Jenny did not resign because of the forfeits, she went back to being an Assistant Pricipal because she was doing the job of two people. The Athletic Director at Edina also is in carge of Activites. So she was overseeing, band, orchestra, debate, science club, etc in addition to one of the largest athletic programs in the state. Don’t start attacking people until you know ALL the facts.
I read some of the comments and chuckle. A mistake was made. We are all human. There are specific rules and punishements. The rules were broken and the consequences were issued. Give me a break if you think that Edina would intentionally “play” a student to win. They would never get away with it. I feel bad for the student. That is a lot of pressure to put on him. It was obviously not his fault. I can not believe that anyone would recommend termination!!!! Look in the mirror. When is the last time you made a mistake? And to recommend private school? That is probably where he transfrerred from. Edina has a great academic program and an honest and ethical athletic department. Shame on you!!
You people don’t get it. We are Edina. The rules don’t apply to people like us!
As a life-long Hornet, one thing I do not like though, is that Jenny would not come out and say this cheating was her fault as the individual in charge. She deflected the blame by saying, “it was the department’s oversight.” and “the district regrets the error” Be a mensch, and bear the mantle of responsibility that is the AD’s throne. Don’t have your minions make excuses for you on how you had to oversee orchestra and science club in addition to football
Lucky for them it comes seven/eight months after their season ended. It sucks even more to have it happen midseason.
And to whoever said he played 10-15 plays a game, that was on par with what Mahtomedi’s player did. I just find it interesting how this happened; Mahtomedi players were informed of their inelligible player pretty much right before the game against Edina, Edina beats us by 3 points (I still think we would have won that game if we had our inelligible player), and now Edina forfeits that game because of an inelligible player.
The first year of the NEW transfer rule is not an excuse, it is only more reason to scrutinize a new student who chooses to participate in an extra-curricular activity. With that said, mistakes are made. To call what happened at Edina cheating, is not fair.
As for the transfer rules they are there for good reason. There are exceptions and there is an appeals process. I know, I filed an appeal two years ago for my son and the appeal was granted. I have no problem with the transfer rules as long as there is a process to appeal. And there is!
You People are unbelieveable if this was Eden Prairie you guys would say oh how bad of Grant and EP to make this mistake but since it’s Edina its Ok and this pretty much could be recruiting in my book so this should make Edina more of a recruiting attackee than Eden Prairie in this whole ridiculous recruting thing right? Well it should so stop being so hypocritical. My kids go to Maple Grove so I am sitting on the outside watching this and this is so ridiculous on your part Edina
