FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Title: East St. Louis Football Team Forced To Forfeit Victories, Removed From 2010 IHSA Football Playoff Field

In Brief: Media Conference Call To Follow Today at 2 p.m.

Activities/Sports: Football

Contact: Matt Troha ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Bloomington, IL. -- The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) announced today (October 26) that East St. Louis High School’s football team will be forced to forfeit five of its nine regular-season victories from the 2010 season and all 10 of its victories from 2009, including three playoff victories, after the team was found to have used an ineligible player in the contests.

As the result of the forfeitures, East St. Louis is no longer eligible for the 2010 IHSA Football Playoffs, which are scheduled to begin on Friday.

“No one wins in these type of situations, ” said IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman. “And while we appreciate the school’s cooperation with our investigation, member schools have an obligation to abide by our association by-laws, including the need to have clear enrollment processes in place and the ability to verify residence issues.”

The IHSA opened an investigation on one East St. Louis football player after Week 5 of the regular-season. That player did not play after the fifth game and was eventually found to be ineligible on October 14, while a second player from the team was also found to be ineligible on October 22. Both investigations centered around issues related to IHSA Residency By-laws.

Information recently obtained from the St. Clair County State’s Attorney contradicted previous information from the investigation on one of the players that led to the forfeitures. The State’s Attorney verified that one of the players had a pre-trial electronic monitoring bracelet at an address in Belleville in April, 2009. The address associated with the bracelet was transferred to a residence in East St. Louis in September 2009, but remained there for just over a month before being transferred back to the original address in Belleville in October 2009.

East St. Louis’ scheduled first round playoff opponent in Class 7A, Belleville West, will now travel to play Belleville East in the first round of the playoffs. O’Fallon High School, who becomes the top seed in the quadrant as the result of earning a victory from an East St. Louis forfeit, will now receive a bye in the first round and face the winner of Belleville East vs. Belleville West in the second round.

“Certainly, the timing of this matter is less than ideal, but as much as some would have liked for us to move faster with this investigation, to do so would have been unfair to both the student-athletes and East St. Louis High School. It was imperative for everyone involved that we gave due diligence to the process and uncovered all applicable information before reaching a decision, ” said Hickman.

The updated playoff seeding and schedule for the quadrant is located below:

 

Seed      School                                  Record                  Playoff Points

1              O’Fallon                               8-1                          36

2              Plainfield South                8-1                          34

3              Minooka                              8-1                          33

4              Belleville East                     7-2                          34

5              Quincy                                  7-2                          31

6              Bradley-Bourbonnais     6-3                          43

7              Belleville West                  5-4                          39

 

CLASS 7A FIRST ROUND GAMES

(7) Belleville West at (4) Belleville East

(1) O’Fallon – BYE, plays winner of (4) vs. (7)

(6) Bradley- Bourbonnais at (2) Plainfield South

(5) Quincy at (3) Minooka

“After giving careful consideration to all options, we felt that the option that impacted the fewest amount of schools and would enable the playoffs to begin as planned was to adjust the quadrant in which East St. Louis had been assigned,” added Hickman. “The fact of the matter is that we had a complete field of 256 teams on Saturday. To have included the first non-qualifier as a replacement for East St. Louis in the field of qualifiers would have impacted nearly 100 schools, and, in the end, we didn’t believe it was fair to those schools that had made travel and scouting plans for their assigned first round games.”

Glen Faulkner is a senior safety for the East St. Louis Sr Flyers. Glen is on the map with recruits and is ranked #83 in the nation by rivals.com and #1 in the state of Illinois. He is a 6-2 194 lb Kentucky recruit. He gave a verbal to Kentucky on 3/4/2010.