Scott Co. stars may be eligible after all

After being ruled ineligible to play this coming season by the KHSAA, it seems teammates Chad Jackson and Dakotah Euton may take the court after all for the 2008-09 season.

After playing two seasons together at Rose Hill, the two phenoms decided to transfer to Scott County and play for Coach Billy Hicks and the Cardinals. They were unexpectedly deemed ineligible by the KHSAA in a bizarre turn of events which saw one player (Euton) announced ineligible and the other (Jackson), eligible at first – only to have KHSAA commissioner Brigid DeVries come back and say that the notice announcing Jackson’s eligibility was a clerical error and that he was in fact ineligible as well.

With Dakotah Euton being a UK signee and Jackson on the Cats’ radar as well, the KHSAA took much scrutiny for this decision, and deservedly so in my opinion.

Then this past Sunday came the news that the KHSAA Hearing Officer assigned to Euton and Jackson’s appeals gave them a favorable ruling saying that they should be eligible for the coming season.

Euton and Jackson are not out of the woods yet, however, as there is still plenty of red tape to get through for the Hearing Officer’s ruling to be made official. Here is what lies ahead for them:      (Courtesy A Sea of Blue)

• Each party to the hearing has 15 days from the date that the findings were mailed to them to object to anything in the findings;
• 15 days after that, Brigid DeVries must act.  She can:

  – Accept the Hearing Officer’s decision and adopt it as final;
  – Reject or modify the order in whole or in part;
  – Remand the order to the Hearing Officer, in whole or in part, for “further proceedings as appropriate.”

• After issuance of a final order, the order may be subjected to judicial review (i.e. a lawsuit may be filed).