MIDVALE — The issues the Utah High School Activities Association has trying to govern ninth-grade sports in a state where 58 schools do not have freshmen in the high school was highlighted Thursday in an informational hearing for the twin sons of Utah State football coach Gary Andersen.
Hagen and Chasen Andersen played on Juan Diego's freshman football team in 2008. When the family moved to Logan in 2009, USU's new coach and wife Stacy Andersen enrolled the boys at Logan High. The boys played freshman football there last fall.
Andersen said they did that because the boys were younger and had, in elementary school, skipped a grade.
The boys, who turned 16 on May 22, were among the younger students in their grade and the Andersens felt the boys were more compatible with younger students.
The parents asked Logan administrators and coaches if the boys could play four years if they repeated ninth grade and were told they could.
That, however, was wrong.
Thursday a hearing panel told Logan and the family that the boys, who will be sophomores next season, only have two years of football eligibility remaining. They didn't play any other sports at Juan Diego so they have three years left in other sports.
"They get four years of high school eligibility just like everybody else," said UHSAA attorney Mark Van Wagoner. "They've already participated for two years in a high school football program. They have two years left."
Van Wagoner said no rules were broken and the issue was one of the state's sports season rule — not transfers, recruiting or eligibility.
"This was an advisory opinion," he said. "No one has violated a rule."
Logan athletic director Clair Anderson said he was told by UHSAA staff that if the boys hadn't played sophomore level football, they'd have had three years of eligibility remaining.
But executive director Rob Cuff said he was only asked about hypotheticals and that he was also told Juan Diego played a Ute Conference schedule. That is where some of the confusion came into play, according to Andersen's attorney Mark Flores.
Ninth-graders who play for a high school team, even if just for the freshman team, only have three years of eligibility remaining at the start of the sophomore year.
But there are scenarios where a student could play freshman Ute Conference football — as in the Alta or Lone Peak programs — and because those teams are not sponsored by the high school, the boys could repeat their freshman year and still have four years of eligibility.
Also, some junior highs have sports programs that are not associated with the high school and those boys could also enroll as freshmen and not lose a year of eligibility.
"What you have is kids having the same experience being treated differently by the association," said Flores. "What happens with freshmen is incredibly confusing. I looked at the rules trying to determine what does it mean to be a high school football team? What I kept noticing is, it depends."
UHSAA's attorney said the association has no jurisdiction over junior highs or Ute Conference programs, so its rule only applies to schools with freshman teams.
Logan football coach Mike Favero said the family had relied on clearly flawed information and believes the miscommunication should not mean the boys suffer.
"These are innocent victims," said Favero, who suggested the school be punished instead. "What did they do wrong? They relied on the information given to them by adults. It was never our intention to mislead anybody."
But the panel concluded that the rule is clear.
"I don't see the murky," said panel member George Bruce, who was a coach for 40 years and athletic director and principal for 20 years.
Playing for a high school team establishes eligibility and Juan Diego's freshman team is sponsored by the school, paid for by the high school and even allows the younger players to dress for postseason games as a reward.
Gary Andersen said had the family known the boys only had three years left, they would have sat out last fall — as freshmen — rather than this upcoming season as sophomores.
"Had someone told us, they wouldn't have played last year," Gary Andersen said. "Missing a sophomore year, that's a big deal. This rule is unbelievably gray."
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