Football team forfeits perfect season because of ineligible player; paper keeps name out of print

By Tim Wiseman
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

The Alabama high school football playoffs began last weekend without a team that enjoyed a perfect regular season. Two weeks ago, soon after its victory over Pell City (right, with quarterback Judd Edwards scoring) the Oxford High School team was declared ineligible. (Consolidated News Service photo by Bob Crisp)

Acting on an anonymous complaint, the Alabama High School Athletic Association ruled one of the team’s players ineligible, meaning that the Yellow Jackets had to forfeit seven of their 10 wins. That news warranted a special four-page section Oct. 30 in the local newspaper, The Anniston Star, but the coverage did not include the name of the ineligible player. Although the paper’s in-house media critic questioned the decision to omit the name, Editor Bob Davis said it was the right thing to do, especially when considering the student's age.

“I didn’t think and we didn’t think that it added anything to the coverage,” to print the student’s name. Davis said in an interview. “The argument is that it is generally known in the school. Our readership goes far beyond that one small community.” The Star’s daily circulation of 25,000 reaches several counties in eastern Alabama. Oxford is a town of 14,600 in Calhoun County, tucked between the county seat of Anniston, population 24,000, and the border with Talladega County and Cleburne County. The county’s population is 112,000.

The Star first reported news of a possible penalty for the Yellow Jackets Oct. 23. In that story, reporter Nick Birdsong wrote that an investigation had begun about a transfer student’s eligibility. He referred to a similar investigation underway at another Alabama school, Hoover High, and named the player whose status was in question there. When the AHSAA ruled against Oxford High a week later, the stories in the special section noted that neither the school nor the AHSAA released the name of the player who was declared ineligible. The reports did say that the student was the team’s only transfer.

In a Nov. 2 column analyzing The Star’s coverage of Oxford High School, media critic Paul Rilling wrote, “The strangest blank was the name of the player ruled ineligible.” He questioned why The Star would name the Hoover player and not the local one, especially since many in the area knew the Oxford student’s identity. He also complained that the newspaper should have kept more of its coverage of the news on the front page, instead of using photos and headlines to refer readers to the special section.

While some of The Star’s reporters knew the name of the transfer student, Davis (left) said the decision to keep it out of print was modeled after the way the paper would treat minors in legal matters. As for naming the Hoover player, Davis said media outlets in Birmingham already had named the Hoover player, so The Star followed suit. Hoover is a Birmingham suburb about 70 miles west of Anniston. Its football team has been profiled in the MTV reality show, “Two-A-Days.”

In the case of the Oxford student, “The identity was mostly unknown,” Davis said. “Second of all, he didn’t commit a crime, but we wanted to treat him with the respect of someone who is underage. It’s the same reason we withhold the names of minors — there shouldn’t be something that follows you forever.”

That was the key for Davis in his decision-making process — the idea that forever linking this student to this incident would be unfair. Thanks to Internet search engines, it’s not far-fetched to imagine some future employer running across the student’s name and learning about the lost season. “We don’t want someone eight years from now saying, ‘You’re the guy that cost us a state championship,’ ” Davis said.

In the days since the special section, The Star has attempted to speak with the student’s family and give them the chance to speak on the record, Davis said. They have not chosen to do so. On Thursday night, the night before what would have been the Yellow Jackets’ playoff opener, the Oxford City Council issued a proclamation declaring them “national champions” for their season.