UPDATED: PHAC threatens to punish SCA for playing Wyoming Area, game tentatively cancelled

Tagged under: District 3, District 4, News

Billy Splain | October 2, 2019

In what was supposed to be a premiere matchup across the state when Southern Columbia traveled to Wyoming Area, the scheduled game may not be played now. The state’s No. 1 ranked Tigers in 2A, and the 7th ranked Warriors in 3A, are both all for playing the game. They both are excited for the opportunity to compete in a battle between unbeaten teams. The only problem is not everyone is excited. Luzerne County Representative Aaron Kauffer got a phone call about this. “There was a vote taken by the Heartland Conference to not go forward with this game and do sanctions against Southern Columbia for this,.” “We were informed of possible sanctions against the school,” said Jim Becker president of the PHAC AND SCA principal. “They were sanctions against the football team and the district athletic program. The sanctions would have been too much, so we have to play Shikellamy.”

“All the players involved were fine with the game, but it goes against the constitution of the league,” Becker said. “They didn’t approve the game. We wanted to make this happen. Unfortunately it didn’t work. What happened is the PHAC executive committee got news of the schedule change when it went out on social media before we could follow through the complete process to inform the PHAC what we wanted to do,” Becker said. “I think if it didn’t get out on social media or we would have notified the PHAC earlier, prior to them finding out on social media, everything would have been fine.”

The bottom line is this. Southern Columbia (7-0) planned on traveling to Exeter to take on Wyoming Area (7-0). The game was setup to be the game of the week across Pennsylvania. Both of their originally scheduled opponents would then take on each other as well. Shikellamy (0-7) and Holy Redeemer (0-7) planned and AGREED to play each other at Berwick’s Crispin Field. All four teams seemed to be excited about the switch, and in terms of competitiveness, what more can you ask than an undefeated matchup and a game that will give a school maybe their only win of 2019.

The head of Pennsylvania athletics, the PIAA, signed off on the schedule changes. District IV officials also were in agreement. Wyoming Area sold thousands of tickets in just several hours, the city had a planning meeting for security, the boosters ordered an extra truckload of food for the concession stands, Berwick was preparing for a game to be held there also, extra food at the stands.  There are many affected by this decision.

The confusion is what these handful of schools are so upset over and why they decided to wait until now to voice it. Southern Columbia is a member of the PHAC, which prohibits schools from dropping conference opponents to pick up non-conference opponents.  They powers that be were okay with Southern Columbia traveling halfway down the eastern shoreline for an opener on ESPN2 (national attention for the teams they play) and Bloomsburg taking on a different opponent (head-scratcher as to why this was ok). Later on in the season the Tigers are now set to play undefeated Montoursville rather than struggling Hughesville. Why isn’t there any complaints with that one? The only thing that might have been an issue is that SCA didn’t ask the PHAC for permission, however, why wait until this late in the “game” to change it? 

The rumored sanctions are that Southern Columbia won’t be allowed to play football games in the PHAC for the next cycle. Also, the threat is out there that all of the Tigers athletic programs won’t be eligible to compete for PHAC divisional title. Maybe the schools that are turning this into a controversy will get their way. Maybe they won’t. The item at hand though is getting lost. The priority should be the 15, 16, 17, and 18-year old athletes that are in a way being held hostage from a competition standpoint. 

A meeting is said to be scheduled for Thursday morning between administrators, league officials, and the state to settle this unneeded dilemma. One of the biggest items on the agenda should be Title IX since female athletics are being threatened in this situation. TITLE IX of the Education Amendments was signed by President Nixon in June of 1972 to become a law. The main purpose of Title IX is to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity that is federally funded.

Let’s hope cooler heads prevail and the games go on as they were in the original changes.  This is a chance for everyone to use this as a learning moment. Either play the games as scheduled, or have clear bylaws that deal with this type of situation.

At a work session Thursday Shikellamy AD announced he will ask for the game switch using proper channels which weren’t used and is the alleged reason this situation arose. Look for the PHAC TO APPROVE the switch

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