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For failing to acknowledge using a third ineligible player, the girls’ basketball team at Prep Charter High School, 1928 Point Breeze Ave., will have its two District 12 AAA City titles and two of its three Public League championships vacated.
The West Passyunk-based program also must return its crowns and will suffer a two-season playoff ban in the wake of a nearly five-month investigation by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association and the School District of Philadelphia.
“All [Prep Charter] sports [teams] will be barred from the postseason for one year as well,” PIAA District 12 chairman Robert Coleman said Tuesday. “The school will receive a letter with instructions and will have 30 days to respond. It can appeal, too.”
His entity learned Feb. 23 of allegations that the Lady Huskies were suiting up non-city residents. Following their 56-37 thrashing of Central the next day to three-peat as the Public League’s victors, the athletes became the subjects of a probe that initially yielded nothing untoward. As the matter intensified, a district inspector general’s report determined Hannah Timmons and Martianna Wilson commuted from Coatesville to matriculate at Prep Charter, even though the school had listed them as having Southwest Philly addresses.
For out-of-city learners to attend city charters, their names must appear behind those of city residents on a waiting list, with their school districts to cover tuition costs. Through the improper addresses, the two players secured spots more quickly. The falsified information led District 12 to issue the girls’ team a one-year postseason ban and the entire athletic department a two-year probation period May 17, with Coleman then requiring the school to provide every student athlete’s address.
“Site visits to homes ensued, and we gave Prep Charter officials an opportunity to disclose any other potential problems, but they didn’t,” Coleman said.
He noted the initial transgressions would not cost the Lady Huskies their titles, as their overseers had presented signed transfer waivers before the investigation’s February beginnings. Those principal-signed forms stated school personnel believed the transfers were not athletically-based. Pressing on, investigators learned that a third, as of yet unidentified, player documented as a Southwest Philly dweller also came to Prep Charter from outside the city’s environs, this time from South Jersey.
“Keeping track of football players’ addresses can be tough, certainly, but when you have a dozen girls, you need to know where they’re from,” Coleman, who learned through Prep Charter it has relieved Chuck Pearsall of the athletic director role, said.
He added the district will go forward with looking to recover tuition costs for the trio and revealed he and District’s 12 board of directors will likely confer with Paul Reiser in early August to gauge his knowledge of the entire situation. The former coach oversaw two of the Lady Huskies’ league-vanquishing runs and last year’s City victory over Ss. Neumann-Goretti High School, 1736 S. 10th St., and recently accepted the coaching job at West Catholic High School.
“We will give him due process, with the consequences running from A to Z if he’s found culpable,” Coleman said.
Noting one should not consider the matter closed, he added the school will have one year to “investigate and clean up” its operations.
“There’s definitely going to be a sense of urgency,” Coleman said. “It’s time for them to tend to their own matters.”
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
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