What the WIAA says about recruitment
An appeals process will determine the final outcome of the penalties levied against two Camas football coaches.
Head coach Jon Eagle was suspended four games and assistant coach Dan Kielty was suspended for one game for the 2015 season after the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League ruled Wednesday that they were in violation of recruitment.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s Handbook gives recommendations for three different levels of violations. They are not mandatory sentences.
Recruitment is a Level 3 violation — the highest. Penalty recommendations associated with Level 3 include a fine of up to $2,500, suspension from up to one year of allowable competition, and forfeiture of contests. The league did not consider the violation to warrant the maximum penalty under Level 3.
Eagle’s suspension of four games is 44 percent of a regular season in football.
A Level 1 penalty, by the way, recommends suspension up to 20 percent of a season. Level 2 recommends up to 50 percent of the season.
Rule 27.0.0 of the handbook covers illegal recruiting.
27.1.0 B states:
“Inducing or attempting to induce or encourage any prospective student attend or continue to attend any member school for the purpose of participating in athletics, even when special renumeration or inducement is not given, is a violation.
“No member school and no one acting on behalf of any member school shall give any speech or give any slide, film, or tape presentation or distribute any written material which states or implies that a member school’s athletic program is better than the athletic program of any other member school or that it would be more advantageous for any prospective student-athlete to participate in athletics at that member school as opposed to any other school.”
District 4 officials will meet in two weeks to go over the penalty issued by the 4A GSHL. District 4 can amend the ruling or give its OK.
Camas officials say they will appeal the penalty all the way to the WIAA’s executive board.
Camas athletic director Rory Oster said he believes wholeheartedly that no one from Camas attempted to recruit an athlete from another school.
Eagle and Kielty declined to comment.
