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July 12, 2006
NIAA ISSUES RULINGS Fernley won't face more sanctionsSPECIAL TO THE PVT
However, NIAA executive director Jerry Hughes told the Web site, nevprep.com, Monday he will make it clear to Fernley and all other member schools that athletes who live under temporary guardianship situations that don't involve hardship - as was the case with one of the Fernley players - are not eligible to compete in Nevada. Any schools or athletes violating the rule in the future, Hughes indicated, would face severe sanctions. "After August (when league meetings are held throughout the state) no school will be able to say that it wasn't aware of the rule ... I guarantee you that," Hughes said. "The Fernley coaches followed (what they thought was) proper protocol. They asked the administrators, and the administrators are supposed to ask me." Fernley already has been forced to forfeit all five of its 2005 football victories after then-seniors Jori Kaeser and James Oppelt were found to be ineligible. Kaeser, Oppelt and Colin Hodges (son of head coach Mark Hodges) moved to Fernley last summer from Medford, Ore., after Hodges - who had been an assistant football coach and head track coach at North Medford High - got the Fernley job in May. All three returned to Oregon shortly after the football season was over, and had openly told players on the team during the season of their intent to do so. Colin Hodges and Kaeser graduated from North Medford last month; Oppelt graduated early and joined the military. Kaeser had been living with the Hodges family for six months in Oregon, and Hughes said Monday that if Fernley had followed proper administrative procedures, Kaeser might have been granted a hardship eligibility waiver because of his previous family situation. Oppelt, however, lived with assistant coach Kris Kribs - who came to Fernley with Mark Hodges - under a temporary-guardianship arrangement that Hughes said rendered him ineligible in Nevada with no possibility of appeal. "Oppelt was not a hardship case," Hughes said. Fernley also remains on NIAA "warning status" because Hughes determined that Hodges conducted practices on Sundays throughout the season, in violation of NIAA rules. Only three schools in the state - the others are Las Vegas Bonanza and Las Vegas Durango, both Class 4-A schools - are on warning status. Hughes said future violations by schools on warning status likely would result in further sanctions against the coaches and the schools. However, Hughes said Monday he could find no evidence that Oppelt or Kaeser were improperly recruited to come to Fernley from Oregon. Under NIAA rules, coaches found guilty of recruiting are subject to a two-year suspension. Hughes met last week with Hodges, Kribs, Lyon County School District superintendent Nat Lommori, current principal Ryan Cross and former principal Sue Segura, who hired Hodges after firing 25-year coach Dave Hart after the 2004 season. Hart, who since has taken a job as athletic director and assistant football coach at Homedale High in Idaho, was the longest-tenured head football coach in Nevada at the time he was fired, and had coached in eight of the first 24 Sertoma all-star games. Based on that meeting, Hughes said he would not pursue any recruiting allegations against Hodges or Kribs. He said he was told the three players, including Hodges' son, moved back to Oregon because they hope to play college football there and wanted to avoid having to pay out-of-state tuition at an Oregon school. Yerington, Dayton players suspended In addition to the Fernley football forfeitures and the recruiting allegations: • The boys basketball teams at both Yerington and Dayton both had several players suspended for two weeks for violating the NIAA's drug / alcohol / tobacco policy. • A letter to the Nevada Appeal last month from a parent whose sons attend Sutro Elementary School in Dayton claimed that the district has taken no action to protect his sons from physical attacks by other students. • NevadaPrep.com reporter Chuck Hildebrand has been threateningly accosted three times in the past year by Fernley athletes and parents - most recently last month during an incident at the Reno Hilton in an area of the casino where individuals under the age of 21 are not allowed. No charges were filed in any of those cases, in the latter instance because the attackers couldn't be identified. But law-enforcement officials will be called immediately if any future incidents occur, and the district as well as the assailants will be held criminally and civilly liable if current Fernley High School students are involved. |
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