Messenger file photo by Chris McCarthy
Coosa Christian School issued a statement earlier this week regarding an Alabama High School Athletic Association investigation into its football program earlier this season.
The program was fined an undisclosed amount and had to forfeit four wins due to what the AHSAA deemed were violations of the association’s transfer runs. Since that ruling on Sept. 29, Coosa won three straight games by an aggregate total of 198 to 7 and clinched the third playoff seed in Class 1A Region 7.
The statement is as follows:
“Coosa Christian hired full-time athletic directors during the summer to better accommodate the growing needs of the athletic program and to run the day-to-day operations of the program. The newly hired employees have children who play athletics. The AHSAA handbook states that children of full-time employees (teachers, administrators, counselors and athletic directors) can move to the school of their parents and immediately be eligible for sports, so these students were allowed to participate during football season. Five games into the season, these students were found to be ineligible because the AHSAA ruled that the employees were not full time, therefor forfeiting the games these students played in. We have followed the appeals process fully and complied with the AHSAA’s decision. Moving forward, it is our continued desire to support our Conquerors and to comply with the AHSAA.
“We know athletic events are competitive and can easily become heated, but our goal is to let the light of Christ shine through us. We have the finest young people that attend and compete for Coosa Christian. We believe our Lord deserves our best and are humbly asking for forgiveness from anyone we have offended as we were dealing with these appeals. Going forward, we will not be perfect and, undoubtedly, we will stumble from time to time, but our ultimate goal is to be good representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Conquerors (4-5) closes out regular season play this Friday (Nov. 3) at Victory Christian in Pell City.