This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Summit Academy won its appeal with the Utah High School Activities Association Board of Trustees to overturn the decision made by the UHSAA Executive Committee to ban the Draper-based charter school from the 2016 football postseason after it was found guilty of undue influence in May.
The BOT, which overcame an original deadlock and voted 3-1 in favor of the reversal, upheld the additional penalties imposed by the Executive Committee of two maximum fines totaling $3,000, placing every athletic program at the school on a two-year probation period, and forcing the school to finance a compliance audit for this year and two years forward to ensure transferring students are not being recruited.
"We're obviously excited. We feel like this is the best decision for the boys that are in the program. I think it's a fair decision by the UHSAA," said first-year Bears football coach Les Hamilton. "… There was a pressure and anxiety going into the hearing today, and having watched some of the reaction from the boys on Twitter, there's a lot of positivity. I think it will be bonding and motivating factor for our kids, now without the unknown, to move forward."
The original sentence was levied after text messages from former Summit Academy assistant football coach Jeff Callahan encouraging players from Copper Hills to transfer for athletic purposes were presented to the Executive Committee.
"The Activities Association is going to have to decide how to regulate conversations that are occurring outside of coaching staffs and revisit how they write the rule for undue influences," Hamilton said. "As of right now, undue influence can be any community member who speaks to a kid about coming to their school, and those type of conversations happen all the time."
Summit Academy's attorney, Tracy Cowdell, did not deny the infractions occurred and apologized to Copper Hills principal Todd Quarnberg and athletic director Darby Cowles.
"It happened, and we're sorry the problem it caused Copper Hills, but it's important [that the players] didn't take the bait," Cowdell said. "They didn't come over [to Summit Academy]."
Cowdell said the top goal was to "strike the provision of the postseason ban," and outlined several points of Summit Academy's argument for a more lenient sentence for the infractions, specifically that everyone involved in the violations is no longer associated with the school.
Cowdell also noted Summit Academy drafted a new policy expected to be approved by August, which requires coaches, players and parents to sign a legally binding affidavit preventing them from participating in illegal recruitment.
The main issue raised by the Summit Academy defense is the postseason ban punished players for mistakes they did not commit.
"These young men didn't do anything wrong," Cowdell said, with the majority of the Summit Academy football program in attendance. "We had adults who did something they shouldn't have done and these kids are paying the price. That doesn't sit well with me."
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