The MHSAA's banning of Tupelo High School freshman track sensation Andrew Brown from competing in track and field last year drew the attention of the PEER Committee. PEER scrutinized MHSAA and found the organization wanting as there was little due process
Andrew Brown dared to compete in the New Balance National Indoor Track & Field Championships in March 2024, a non-MHSAA event. The Monolith was not pleased.
Brown is a junior at Tupelo High School who competes in cross-country and track. How good is Brown? The speedster led the nation in the 1600m for high school athletes after he ran it in 4:18 minutes earlier during his freshman year. It was the eighth-fastest time among all freshmen who have ever competed in the event.
The Tupelo lad has been nothing short of a track prodigy during his short career. He competed in varsity events while he was in eighth grade, placing third in 6A in the 1600m and fifth in cross-country.
Unfortunately for Brown, there were no indoor tracks in Mississippi as there are in other states such as Louisiana and Alabama. No indoor tracks means there is no indoor track season. This is where the fun began.
Brown managed to qualify for the New Balance Nationals in Boston, the only Mississippi track and field athlete to do so. However, this is Mississippi where excellence is punished and incompetence is rewarded. He placed 87 out of a field of 114 athletes in his event.
There is an obscure MHSAA rule barring an athlete from competing unattached in an event not sanctioned by MHSAA. A complainant argued young Brown violated the rule by running the race without MHSAA approval after MHSAA's outdoor track and field season had already commenced on March 1. The Nationals took place March 7-10, 2024.
MHSAA suspended young Brown for the 2024 track season. The Brown family appealed. MHSAA held a closed-door hearing. MHSAA's Executive Committee only allowed Brown's father, Jim, to speak on Andrew's behalf. His attorney was not allowed to address the Board. The complainant remained anonymous.
The case drew the attention of the PEER Committee. PEER issued a report on January 6, 2025 calling out MHSAA. The highlights of the report are:
* MHSAA allowed other athletes to compete in indoor track championships without penalty. 5 athletes competed in the Adidas Indoor National Championships and Indoor Nike Nationals in 2023. An Oxford High School athlete competed in the Eastern Indoors in Louisville, KY in February 2024, a month before Brown competed in the Nationals. The Clinton 4 x 200 relay team placed second in the New Balance Indoor Nationals in 2016. The Clarion-Ledger reported it's success in a story undoubtedly read by MHSAA officials.
* MHSAA by-laws do not define the process for the investigation and penalties for informal complaints. There is no official complaint log. No official complaint form exists thus there is no actual record of complaints filed. PEER said the failure to require written complaints and log them allowed MHSAA to hide whether it was "consistently enforcing" its rules.
* By-laws do not "clearly define" prohibited events. There is no process for obtaining approval to participate in them. The by-laws do not require a coach or school to obtain prior approval from MHSAA.
PEER pointed out the inconsistency as Brown competed in an indoor track meet in 2023 but suffered no penalty as no one complained. Thus brown thought it was permissible to compete in such an even the next year.
* Due Process? What's that? PEER said MHSAA dos not have to "ensure procedural due process." The good ole boys and gals can apparently make it up as they go along with no consequences .
* The appeal process is weighted against the athlete. If the athlete appeals, he must pay a $300 fee within five days of the ruling and include his appeal. If the school appeals, it must pay $1,000 with the request for an appeal.
If the appeal is unsuccessful, the part can appeal to arbitration but must deposit $3,000 with MHSAA to be held in trust, an appeal bond of sorts. MHSAA keeps the funds if it wins arbitration and refund it if it loses.
The arbitrator can only determine whether MHSAA was arbitrary and capricious or lacks substantial evidence to support the decision. The decision can not be challenged in court.
* MHSAA is not required to provide due process to Mississippi high school athletes (p.20). Thus MHSAA can handcuff the aggrieved's ability to present evidence or have a lawyer speak on his behalf.
* PEER reported MHSAA was prepared to change its policies so attorneys would be allowed to present arguments for their clients.
PEER said MHSAA needed to clean up its act and do a better job of ensuring the kids get a fair shake. The Committee recommends:
- Creating a formal approval process for participation in defined events.
- MHSAA should create a uniform complaint form. Such a form serves as a record.
- MHSAA should log formal and informal complaints
- Lawyers should be allowed to address MHSAA at hearings.
MHSAA disagreed with PEER's findings. It cooperated with PEER as a courtesy. MHSAA said it was not fair to accuse it of selective enforcement because it did not know other athletes competed in similar events. However, the newspapers reported Clinton's success in 2016. It is hard for MHSAA to feign ignorance on that particular episode.
The organization said although Brown competed without penalty in 2023, his coaches and school knew it was illegal and should have told him so. MHSAA justified the arbitration requirement as it saves "huge legal fees and long court delays." Seven cases have gone to arbitration, with parents winning three of them.
MHSAA said it already keeps a log of formal complaints. The organization must receive a complaint in writing before it can investigate. MHSAA said it keeps attorneys from addressing the committee so as to "avoid an adversarial, litigious atmosphere." However, MHSAA said it will allow attorneys to represent their clients before the committee.
Our old friend attorney Jim Keith of Adams & Reese represented MHSAA.
Kingfish note: The legislature should place its own set of handcuffs on MHSAA. A good place to start would be requiring it to follow portions of the Public Records and Open Meetings Acts. MHSAA might be a private organization but it is an organization that represents almost exclusively Mississippi public schools. The same policy should be applied to other public official or employee associations as well.
15 comments:
Would baseball players competing in summer leagues and playing on select teams be an issue? What about basketball players on AAU teams? High school tennis players, golfers, and swimmers are always competing in events outside of their high school team schedule. Tons of girls volleyball players play on travel teams. i'm honestly asking as I don't know the details.
The MHSAA's behavior during this ordeal is so typical of the crabs in a bucket mentality that pervades Mississippi. Andrew Brown should leave as soon he is able and never return.
Make MHSAA a division of the Mississippi Department of Education - due process guaranteed.
Since this entity regulates activities within state schools, it is a state actor. As such, the legislature ought to have some ability to guide, direct, instruct, or even force rules to ensure fairness and transparency.
Summer leagues are out of season so they are legal. The MHSAA handbook is on their website for anyone to read. This student competed in an event that was during their track season and it is obvious a rival school reported it to rule him ineligible. Usually it is for a year, but it looks like he only got banned for that school year and could run again in the Fall. Everyone agrees to the rules they just got caught breaking a rule. Could have run in a national race in the summer though.
There is no doubt that the MHSAA and MAIS both are stains on our state high school sports. They both should be dissolved and a new entity should come in and run both public and private under the Tennessee model.
This story, the mess at JA and the other area private schools in the ares - its a pattern. There is an athlete that moved to a new school in the area and their old school filed a complaint to keep them benched - no appeal process and it ended up being untrue allegations that resulted in a coach resigning - but the season was lost.
There's always a new way to 'win' in the 'sip!
"MHSAA justified the arbitration requirement as it saves 'huge legal fees and long court delays.'"
There won't likely be huge legal fees and long court delays if you just do the right thing.
Further, since MHSAA purports to regulate government school activities, the state should be suing them.
There is no doubt that MHSAA is not perfect and needs some change, BUT..... The suggestion to involve the legislature is downright frightening. I'm sure politics would NEVER be considered if the legislature got its hand in that cookie jar! The MHSAA has a board made up of coaches, administrators, etc. These board members should be the folks who make good reasonable changes in the best interest of students. Involving the legislature would be the usual disaster that out legislature is.
"The legislature should place its own set of handcuffs on MHSAA."
and
"Make MHSAA a division of the Mississippi Department of Education"
I was slightly curious about some details, so I went to the MHSAA website. I then googled a couple of specifics, including "MHSAA budget." Mississippi's educational system is largely - but not entirely - a big mess that does not currently accomplish its (alleged) role, educating our children, particularly well. This convoluted, "non-for-profit" add-on to an already screwed up situation needs to be done away with. The situation with this kid is just a tiny example of why. Clearly, this a comparatively large bureaucracy doing more to inhibit the overall purpose and goal than to foster anything at all related to that purpose and goal.
On the website, there is a subsection under the "About" tab, "History." Read it. It essentially spells out why MHSAA should no longer exist. I'd guess MHSAA did not intend for it to do that. Which is just more evidence of why it needs to be done away with as a non-working, unnecessary part of a marginally working necessary system. It is also an example of the old trick of creating an overly-complex situation, then creating a problem, and then justifying your continued employment by claiming to be not only necessary due to the complexity, but the only one who knows how to fix things.
I acknowledge that at this point, this is just an educated guess, but I'd make that educated guess and say this is yet another case of bureaucratic mission creep along with the aforementioned old trick, and that a much smaller "team," under strict control and guidelines, would be a better solution. Not a perfect one, a better one.
The MHSAA should be “spayed and neutered” and be put on a shelf much like what has been done with the NCAA. The lack of consistency and accountability in the way it operates and funds itself is just shameful.
He's not from Clinton so no scholarship from JA.
"These board members should be the folks who make good reasonable changes in the best interest of students."
"Should be" and "are" - two words that can rarely be used together in these types of situations. This is the administration of, ahem, extra-curricular activities. Such activities are certainly a reasonable part of a good overall education and school experience, ahem, for the students. That MHSAA wants, much less takes as a given that it has, authority over the perfectly reasonable and harmless (even beneficial) extra-curricular activity(ies) students engage in largely proves what it "should" do and what it does do are different things.
If some "non-for-profit" org started suspending kids for any extracurricular educational activities it had not sanctioned, any guesses as to what the response to such would be from parents, grandparents, etc.?
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we are going to have to suspend little Johnny..."
"WHAT? WHY?"
"Well, we received an anonymous complaint that he was not only reading several business magazines in the evenings, but going so far as to learn computer programming and even doing a little creative writing..."
"Well, yes, we encourage those kinds of activities in our children..."
"AH-HA! YOU ADMIT IT!"
"Are you insane?"
"My good people, just what do you think would happen to these kids if they were allowed to learn, just all willy-nilly and without sanctioning by us?"
"Well, for starters, they wouldn't be forced to be school administrators when they got advanced degrees in fields with a high demand, and then, jobs actually producing something, which paid about $500K plus benefits, stock options, a 401k, and a sense of satisfaction..."
"BLASPHEMERS! BLASPHEMERS! GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!"
It seems that this issue was not reasonablely thought out. He was not competing against other schools in his district or even in the state. He was competing as an individual. His participation did not have ANY effect on the other schools or participates in his conference or state.
The organization's response to the PEER report contains this statement: "The organization said although Brown competed without penalty in 2023, his coaches and school knew it was illegal and should have told him so."
If the organization had no idea he had competed (as they claim), how would they know that the school and coaches knew it was illegal?
The MHSAA organization is blatantly accusing the school and its coaches of knowingly committing illegal activity. If I were one of the coaches and the organization's accusation is not true, I would have their ass in court and skip their arbitration process.
Considering the MHSAA mentality on full display, I'm frankly surprised this organization has not sanctioned boys in girls' sports programs. The King can do no wrong and exhibits arrogance on full display. It's past time for a trip to the woodshed.
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