The WIAA’s Executive Board ruled that Camas football coach Jon Eagle did commit a “form of recruiting” and placed the Camas athletic department on probation for one year.
No coaches will be suspended.
“The board believes that Coach Eagle’s actions were a form a recruiting because he did not follow appropriate communication protocol when contacted by a student and/or family,” said Mike Colbrese, executive director of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.
The board also has directed the WIAA’s staff to come up with a more concise definition of what recruitment is, Colbrese said.
This is the final step in the penalty/appeals process for the governing body of Washington high school athletics.
Mike Nerland, the superintendent of Camas schools, said there will be no more action taken from the school district.
“We have always firmly asserted this was not a recruiting violation,” Nerland said. “Coach Eagle was not trying to recruit.
“Coach Eagle was guilty of meeting the young man and answering his questions. Coach Eagle told him to go back and complete his senior year of high school.”
The athlete is enrolled at Evergreen High School and will be a senior in the fall.
Nerland said the protocol of not communicating with the school’s administration about the student’s request to meet is the “heart of the violation.”
“If we look at the actual meeting that took place … Coach Eagle was not enticing the athlete to come to Camas,” Nerland said. “The violation was meeting with the young man. He (Eagle) realizes that now.”
The executive board also asked that coaches at Camas undergo training.
“The meeting is not something the Camas athletic department condones,” said Rory Oster, the school’s athletic director. “We’re not going to let this happen again.
“The Camas athletic department very much respects the decision by the WIAA’s executive board this afternoon. We look forward to having Coach Eagle and his staff focus on football.”
Monday’s announcement capped a month of penalties and appeals that started when Oster self-reported a violation to the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League. The report noted that the student first approached assistant coach Dan Kielty, who then got in touch with Eagle. The student, the student’s grandfather, and Eagle later met at a local business. Eligibility and football were discussed, according to the self-report.
The GSHL voted on May 6 to suspend Eagle for four games and Kielty for one game in the 2015 season.The Camas School District appealed the penalty, claiming that while the meeting was ill-advised, it was not recruiting.
After hearing the appeal on May 21, District 4, which oversees all of Southwest Washington high school athletics, reduced Eagle’s suspension to three games, added two games for Kielty, fined the school, and placed the athletic department on probation.
The next step was a meeting with the district directors of the WIAA, who ruled on Thursday that there was no violation because the grandfather corroborated Eagle’s claim that the coach never encouraged the student to come to Camas. In fact, the grandfather said Eagle advised the student to stay at Evergreen.
District 4’s board responded, asking for a review of the district directors’ decision, which made its way to the executive board’s regularly scheduled meeting Sunday and Monday.
“What led the district directors was their belief it was not recruiting because it was not spelled out in the (WIAA) handbook,” Colbrese said.
The board determined that any time a coach meets with a student from another school and talks about his program and does not inform his own administration first, it is a violation, Colbrese said.
There are three levels of penalties, according to the WIAA Handbook. Recruiting is a Level 3 — highest — penalty, and it is punishable to up to a one-year suspension. Colbrese said the penalties are guidelines. And in this case, because of the language in the handbook, the board decided to go with a lighter penalty.
“There are a number of people who believe that Coach Eagle made a mistake, but it’s not really in writing that the action is recruiting,” Colbrese said. “That’s why (the board) directed the staff to take a look at it.”
Colbrese said he hoped new language — “working to develop a document that clearly defines the dos and don’ts of the association’s recruiting rule” — could be in place in the handbook prior to the 2015-16 school year.
Jon Eagle did not return a message seeking comment prior to publication.
“He is a man of high character and integrity,” Nerland said of Eagle. “We are proud to have him as our head coach.”
