Devastated ‘Dogs hold prayer rally

Devastated ‘Dogs hold prayer rally

Over 60 fans showed up in Earle Friday night to support the Bulldogs football team

sports@theeveningtimes.com

The lights were on at the Earle football field last Friday and fans poured into the stadium at 7 p.m. to support the Bulldogs team, but it was for a much different reason than why the fans originally thought they would be there earlier in the week.

Instead of hosting Foreman in the semifinal round of the 2A playoffs last Friday, Earle held a prayer rally for the Bulldogs football team, who was recently forced to forfeit their entire 2017 season due to the use of an ineligible player.

Still, 14 Bulldogs players took the field, surrounded at midfield by a circle of 63 fans. The Earle players hugged, cried and embraced their head coach Albert Coleman as Tameka Allen led a prayer that lasted just over 18 minutes.

“It just let me — and the kids — know that we have a community that has our back and that really loves us and supports us no matter what,” Coleman said.

Earle received the news that they would not be playing in the semifinal game last Thursday, a day before the game was scheduled to be played, when the Arkansas Activities Association visited Coleman and other school officials, notifying the school they had recently obtained transcripts showing that 19year-old Trevon Reel, who transferred to Earle from Marion earlier in his high school career, was in fact in his ninth semester of high school athletics and had been ineligible this season due to AAA’s rule that student athletes are only allowed eight semesters of high school athletics.

That meeting set off an exhausting weekend, both physically and emotionally, for Coleman and the Earle community.

“I’m drained man,” Coleman said. “I haven’t slept.

There’s been no sleep, man.”

“It’s been extremely tough on all of us,” Coleman added. “I probably won’t sleep the weekend but I’m more worried about my kids. I have a phenomenal group of seniors and they’re devastated and I’ve been holding them up every day, even yesterday, and today you still got to pull them in and hold them up because they’re falling down and you’re trying to be strong for them and they’re trying to be strong for me and its tough man.”

The news nullified a season that saw the Bulldogs win 10-straight games and earn a chance to play in the state championship game at War Memorial Stadium this season. Coleman says he would’ve preferred almost any other penalty in order to see his team’s season end on the field instead.

“These kids, this group has worked hard man,” Coleman said. “Collectively, they’ve put in more time and energy than any group of kids that I’ve coached in my eight years in Earle and they deserve to continue to play as the team that they are, and it was taken away.

It’s just a bad, bad nightmare. That’s what it is.”

Coleman did stress though that this nightmare is in no way Reel’s making.

“This thing with Trevon — I do want to say this — in no way shape form or fashion does this team, this school or community hold Trevon responsible for anything that happened out here,” Coleman said. “He’s a great kid. He came out here and he worked his tail off and he’s shouldering a burden enough for people to contact him and tell him he’s responsible. He’s not responsible. This is an adult issue and we need to get to the bottom of the issue.”

Coleman says that if this is Reel’s ninth semester of high school athletics then that is an oversight on the part of Earle High School and not Reel.

“As far as us as a staff and a faculty, it’s an oversight on our end,” Coleman said.

“I just believe it’s something we hadn’t seen. We calculate on age and we calculate on GPA and we put them in these programs to get them eligible and we talk to teachers.”

Earle could still file an injunction to halt the 2A playoffs until they can present their case in front of a board of AAA members.

Page 41 of the AAA handbook states that if Earle can show legitimate errors or omissions in the original transcripts as received then the school could move on without penalty.

However, locating records that contradict the transcripts that AAA now has in their position could be a challenging obstacle.

“We haven’t been able to really place the original stuff that was sent to us or brought to us,” Coleman said. “But, AAA did bring over an original copy (of Reel’s transcripts), a copy that was sent from Marion, and it’s still some discrepancies in it as far as his classifications and all that.

We’re looking at it and our goal is to get those things to the correct people, so they can look at it and tell us if we actually have a case or a situation that we need to deal with.”

Along with the future of the 2017 Earle Bulldogs football team, other questions

remain. At this time, it

is still unknown to Earle who made the AAA aware of this issue, though Coleman says a request has been made through the Freedom of Information Act to find out.

Another question Earle wants answered is why, after Reel had allegedly been ineligible all season, was this issue brought to light the day before the semifinal game.

A few things are certain though. Earle appears blindsided by these developments. Emotionally, the football team was devastated, and the Earle community feels slighted.

“With this situation with Trevon, it’s just a malicious attempt by whoever it may be,” Coleman said. “We want to find out who it was. They have rules that govern thing of this nature and I just honestly believe that someone knew of this information early on and just held it until this time. It’s just hard. And, I don’t ever pull the race card, but we are the only predominately black school here. We are 99 to 98 or 95, whatever the percent is to be where we are, and it seems like every time something good starts happening for us there’s something negative that comes from somewhere else… In my eight years (with Earle), I’ll say that Earle is hated. They’ve won in basketball. We’ve won a few times in the semis and it seems that every time we get close to reaching a goal out here on the football field something comes up.”

If Earle remains disqualified from the 2A playoffs, the Salem Greyhounds (8-5 overall) are scheduled to play the Foreman Gators (11-1) in the semifinal round game in Foreman this Friday, with kickoff slated for 7 p.m.

By Collins Peeples