01/15/2025
Story received from writer Todd Helmick
STORYLINE: FORT HILL FOOTBALL FORFEITS GAMES DUE TO USE OF AN INELIGIBLE PLAYER
THE ORIGIN OF INELIGIBILITY
If you live in Cumberland and are not in the loop of high school football happenings you are one of few. This community has always loved its high school football. Whether a sports fan or not, this fall opened the door for something completely new in this rural mountain town. Fort Hill had to forfeit five football wins due to the use of an ineligible player. Those wins on the field were turned into losses on paper.
Thanks to a Maryland high school football set-up where everybody makes the playoffs, the Sentinels were able to overcome the verdict and bring home their 11th state championship, their state-tying record fourth in a row. The path to get there, however, involved playing as the visiting postseason team five weeks in a row. Many of those locations were over two- and three-hour drives, something Fort Hill has never done or even attempted that many weeks in a row because the five forfeited wins dropped them into the last-place seed.
Lost in the process was gobs of money for the school. Having to pay for travel expenses each week such as bus fare and food, while losing the money made at Greenway Avenue Stadium concession stands added up. Que será, será. Fort Hill still got their state championship some might say.
Through the process of being forced to forfeit games due to using an ineligible player, a ton of speculation has been thrown on the fire. This will be an attempt to lay some groundwork truths based on conversations with those directly involved.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Fort Hill had a student transfer to the school last August (2024) who also joined the football team. The student in question had attended Frankfort High School across the Potomac River in West Virginia the previous two years and was getting ready to begin his junior year. He played football at Frankfort as a freshman but had not played football at Frankfort last year as a sophomore while participating solely on the basketball team. He lived in Wiley Ford, West Virginia with his mother, father and two brothers. His family decided it would be best to have their oldest son transfer from Frankfort to another school that summer. They considered a few options and decided on Fort Hill.
According to the father, his son was having difficulties at Frankfort on several levels including his studies/grades in addition to some disciplinary problems. His son wasn't comfortable at Frankfort. So they decided to make the transfer in hopes a different setting could help their son. The obvious obstacle was that the son lived at his family home in Mineral County, West Virginia. To be a student in Maryland required that he either pay out-of-state tuition of $18,000 per year or move his place of residence to Fort Hill territory in Cumberland.
The cost was an unaffordable issue, so the father decided to set up a residence for his son in Cumberland near the school at the home of a close friend where the father himself had been living for parts of the summer. To accomplish this task, he had to demonstrate to the Allegany County Board of Education (BOE) that his son was now living at this new location. The father provided all the necessary documents including a cell phone bill and an electric utility bill under his name in addition to a BOE residential form signed by both he and the owner of the Cumberland home.
No one at Fort Hill, including the administration and coaching staff, can clear a transfer student. The BOE person(s) in charge of such things are called PPWs (Personal Pupil Workers). The PPW in charge of this cleared the son to be a student at Fort Hill using the standard requirement verification process.
Fort Hill Head Coach Zack Alkire explained that football practice had already begun on August 14. Alkire had just been informed that a new student had been cleared to attend the school and was going to play football despite being a little late with practice that was already under way.
After realizing who that student was, Alkire expressed his concerns with the principal as well as with the PPW in charge of approval about the status of this new transfer student because this was not your typical student-athlete. Standing at an imposing 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds, everyone in this area knew as Alkire put it, this was a very high-profile athlete, and he did not wish to have any discrepancy with this transfer process as he was certain it was going to be questioned.
Alkire was reassured by the BOE that the new student was cleared to become a member of the varsity football team. That answer from the BOE still was not good enough for Alkire, though. He again contacted the BOE and informed them that he was not comfortable with this situation and where the new transfer might be living. He asked the PPW to please make sure this approval is verified. So the BOE called the father and had him come into the BOE to go through the transfer process verification yet again.
This time the father brought more documentation. Alkire was then told by the BOE that the father had provided more documentation and was approved. This young man is absolutely cleared to attend Fort Hill and play athletics here. The new transfer got his football equipment and began to practice. Due to state regulations, the player had to go through an acclimatization process like all athletes do when practice begins. It's a safety procedure to slowly prepare student-athletes. He did not play in Fort Hill's two scrimmages or the first game of the season at Northern Garrett due to this process. His first game was in Week 2 when Fort Hill traveled to Baltimore to tackle Dunbar. The new big man on campus played in every single game moving forward.
HOMECOMING SURPRISE
The week of the annual Homecoming game, the last regular season game of the year, between Allegany and Fort Hill changed everything for this young man and his new school and teammates.
An anonymous phone call was made to the BOE that the student in question was not living where his father claimed that he was, and that he was still staying at his family home in Mineral County, West Virginia. The BOE immediately had two employees investigate the tip.
They first physically went to the South Cumberland home where he claimed to have been living. The owner of the house was not in at that moment. Someone else had answered the door and was asked if this student was living there. The reply was no.
The employees then left and went to the family home in Wiley Ford and knocked on the door. No one answered and so they left a note on the door that someone from the family was to contact the Allegany County BOE immediately. That was the limit and the end of the physical investigation.
The father states that he was immediately called into Fort Hill High School where he had a meeting with the two BOE investigators, the school principal and Alkire. The father was instructed that they had a problem with where the son was sleeping. The father was presented with a photo in this meeting that was taken by the BOE investigation at his Wiley Ford home that showed a pair of red football cleats (shoes) sitting by the porch door. The BOE claims that the red shoes, Fort Hill colors, was the sure sign his son was living here. The father stated that he has two other sons. One of them plays football for the local p*e wee team, who also has red in their uniforms. These shoes did not belong to the student in question but to his younger brother. That did not change the fact that the answer to where his son was currently staying was not in Cumberland.
WHAT ARE THE RULES?
The BOE then declared the student in question ineligible for living out of state and not in the Fort Hill school district. He was immediately no longer permitted to attend Fort Hill as a student and no longer permitted to play athletics. The BOE then contacted the MPSSAA (Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association) to notify them of this player's status. Under strict state guidelines, the MPSSAA immediately made a statement that Fort Hill must forfeit any games the ineligible player had participated in, even if for just one play. That wound up being every game but the opener at Northern Garrett.
The MPSSAA is not responsible for declaring student-athlete eligibility. They leave that up to each local jurisdiction. Once the local BOE makes that determination, then the MPSSAA will implement the rules for using an ineligible player and those rules are cut and dried with little to no wiggle room for mitigating circumstances.
Fort Hill does have the right to appeal the decision within 30 days. However, with this circumstance happening within three days of the state football playoff pairings being implemented, the decision was made to force Fort Hill to forfeit those games without representation. Good luck in your travels Fort Hill.
Surely noted however is the timing of all this. Had this anonymous tip come just one week later after the annual Homecoming game had been completed and playoff pairings established, Fort Hill football would have been ineligible for the playoffs. The consecutive three-time defending state champions would have their season ended with no playoffs, no chance to defend their state championship.
THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION
The million-dollar question is did the Fort Hill coaching staff know that their new player was not living and sleeping where his father claimed he was? Did they know about it and try to cover it up? The answer to those questions is absolutely not according to the coaching staff. It's not their place to follow kids home from school or practice to determine where the entire roster sleeps at night.
If some of his teammates knew, there was nothing of it mentioned to those in charge. He was deemed by those close to him to be living where he claimed at times, staying with teammates on weekends and staying with his mother in West Virginia at other times.
MORE ANONYMOUS TIPS
Approximately two weeks later some new anonymous tips came flowing in. This time it was an unnamed letter mailed to the BOE and Fort Hill. This time it was an allegation that several current named Fort Hill coaches in multiple sports had been illegally recruiting players. The letter specifically named four starting varsity football players on the roster that were not living in a Fort Hill district.
What is most alarming, however, is that this defamation letter was also sent to other Fort Hill opponents, other schools in the playoffs, newspapers and radio stations. Zack Alkire and the Fort Hill office began receiving phone calls from other schools and local media outlets.
Another investigation by the BOE started again based on these anonymous tips. This time, all four players were cleared. Although only one of the parents was ever called in to testify. Turns out these accused players were living where they claimed and were living in a Fort Hill district. Only one resided outside those lines in LaVale. But that student-athlete had a legal Out-of-District permit from a year prior.
If you are a parent/guardian of a student attending a public school in Allegany County, your child is permitted to attend another school in the county outside of their residential district limits if you apply for and obtain an Out-of-District Permit through the BOE. You will be required to demonstrate why this permit should be granted, which may include a handful of reasons. The application can be approved or denied by the BOE.
Upon Zack Alkire getting a copy of the anonymous letter that named him among a few other coaches in multiple sports as using out of district players, Alkire first thought it best that he comb through his entire roster of players and verify where they are all living, at least on paper. Unaware, Alkire found one that listed his address outside the district in Allegany territory. Alkire claims his heart sank into his stomach at that moment. He quickly discovered that this player too had obtained an Out-of-District permit. Whew, catastrophe averted yet again.
Zack Alkire doesn't have an exact course to follow for these issues. He does recommend that at the start of every school year, every coach and every athletic director should be provided a list of players that transferred or live out of district for all three public schools in the county.
In Part II, the father will present his side of the story. To be continued...
Todd Helmick is a former Florida State University football player. He has written stories for several newspapers/publications for 25 years and owns the college football website NationalChamps.net. Todd has appeared on over 50 radio stations across the country, including The Paul Finebaum Show and regularly on his hometown station Baltimore FOX Sports 1370.
