Walker's eligibility status at stake
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By TOM GROESCHEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer[/FONT]
<SCRIPT language=JavaScript> s_prop1 = "By_TOM_GROESCHEN-The_Cincinnati_Enquirer";</SCRIPT>CINCINNATI -- While Bill Walker and O.J. Mayo hope to lead North College Hill High School to a third consecutive Division III state basketball title this coming season, the Ohio High School Athletic Association first must decide if Walker is eligible to play his senior year.
The players, both Huntington natives, are rated among the nation's top college basketball prospects.
OHSAA officials have been investigating whether Walker has exhausted his eligibility, based on a ninth-grade year at Rose Hill Christian in Ashland. in the 2002-03 school year. Walker was listed as a freshman at Rose Hill during two semesters of the 2002-03 season, which could mean he will be ineligible for the 2006-07 season at NCH.
"I know there are some issues with conflicting information," NCH athletic director Joe Nickel said. "If we could have gotten all the records up front, maybe this could have been handled in 2002-03.
The person that gets hurt is the kid, and that's unfortunate."
OHSAA bylaws stipulate that a student-athlete has eight semesters to participate in athletics, from the time a student begins ninth grade. According to Rose Hill, Walker was considered a ninth-grader when he transferred from Rose Hill to the NCH district in February 2003. But Walker was enrolled by NCH as an eighth-grader, and administrators believed he would be eligible to play four years of varsity basketball (2003-04 season through 2006-07).
Walker has been at NCH the past six semesters, and his two semesters playing at Rose Hill would give him eight semesters since ninth grade -- meaning his high school basketball career would be over.
NCH, according to Nickel, believed Walker was an eighth-grader when he enrolled at NCH in February 2003. A closer look:
Walker has switched schools several times since he was in sixth grade, including -- according to Nickel -- a stint as a seventh-grader at Marva Collins Preparatory School in Cincinnati.
Walker also attended Rose Hill (as a sixth-grader, then as a ninth-grader), St. Joseph's Central Catholic High School in Huntington and North College Hill.
Walker began the 2002-03 school year at St. Joseph Central Catholic, which has grades 7-12. Patrick Finneran, St. Joseph administrator, said Walker was enrolled as an eighth-grader to start the 2002-03 school year.
"That was before we got his official transcript," Finneran said Thursday. "When the official transcript came, he had already left.
Before the question was answered about what grade he should be in, he went to Rose Hill."
Walker went to Rose Hill in October 2002. Dr. Randy Douglas, superintendent at Rose Hill, said Walker was listed as a freshman upon arrival. "He was a ninth-grader when he enrolled here, and he was a ninth-grader when he left here," Douglas said Thursday. "All of our records indicate that."
Walker played in 16 varsity basketball games as a freshman at Rose Hill from Dec. 3, 2002, to Jan. 25, 2003.
Jeff Hall, Mayo's and Walker's coach at Rose Hill, said that in late January of that season, Walker's AAU coach, Dwaine Barnes, insisted Walker be placed back in eighth grade. Mayo was in eighth grade in the 2002-03 season at Rose Hill, also playing varsity basketball. (Kentucky high school bylaws permit students to play varsity sports before ninth grade, whereas Ohio bylaws require a varsity athlete to be at least a ninth-grader.)
According to Hall, when Rose Hill would not put Walker back in eighth grade, his family/advisers withdrew him from the school.
Walker came to North College Hill in February 2003 and was placed in the NCH middle school, in eighth grade. Mayo followed Walker to NCH in April 2003 and also enrolled in eighth grade. Regarding Walker, Nickel said NCH at the time (2003) had no records that indicated he had completed eighth grade. NCH believed that since Walker began the year in eighth grade at St. Joseph's -- which technically he did, as Finneran indicated -- Walker could be placed in eighth grade at NCH.
Barnes did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story. Walker and his family could not be reached for comment; Nickel said the family wants media inquiries to go through Barnes.
Douglas, Finneran and Nickel all said their schools have sent their records to the OHSAA.
"Our school administration was under the impression, when Bill came here, that he had not finished the eighth grade," Nickel said. "If (the OHSAA) has information that we didn't have 31/2 years ago, then I don't know."
The crux of the situation, Nickel said, is what Walker's family members say they were told. The family in 2003 was under the impression that Walker did not complete his eighth-grade year before coming to NCH, Nickel said.
OHSAA assistant commissioner Deborah Moore said the state probably won't announce a ruling on Walker until at least Wednesday. The OHSAA office won't be open until then because commissioners are attending a National Federation of State High School Associations convention in Orlando, Fla.
Bob Goldring, an OHSAA assistant commissioner, said in April that he believed the ruling would go in Walker's favor. Goldring said Thursday that he preferred not to be quoted further but indicated he now could not say for sure which way the ruling will go.
"I know they have not made a final decision," Goldring said, referring to OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross and his staff.
Questions about Walker's eligibility arose over the past winter. Why now, and not three years ago?
"Because now he's pushing up against that eight semesters of eligibility," Hall said. "It wasn't an issue back then."
Hall, a former University of Louisville basketball player, is now an assistant coach at Ashland Fairview High School.
"It's my hope that things work out for Bill," Hall said. "My heart goes out to him in this situation, because it could have been avoided."
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