Leading off today: I'm as much a law and order guy as the next man, but even I wouldn't sentence someone to jail for jaywalking. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association apparently is not of the same mindset.
The governing body for Wisconsin scholastic sports imposed forfeits on two football teams and issued a two-year playoff ban for them over what appears to be faulty paper-pushing by the person responsible for pushing paper.
Milwaukee Bay View and Milwaukee Pulaski received letters Monday morning from detailing the punishments, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Bay View AD Jay Wojcinski attributed the disciplinary action to a clerical gaffe by city interscholastic athletics commissioner Bobbie Kelsey in which she did not submit the necessary paperwork authorizing the schools to replace each other in their respective league divisions.
"She didn't fill out the paperwork with (the WIAA), so it was never approved for us to move over and Pulaski to move over," Wojcinski told the paper.
According to the report, the WIAA routinely approves such changes as long as all 14 City Conference ADs sign off on the paperwork. Wojcinski said Kelsey routinely told her ADs to ignore WIAA correspondence, saying she would handle those matters herself.
A WIAA spokesman would not comment specifically on the matter, and a representative of the Milwaukee City Conference did not respond to requests for comment, the paper reported.
Issuing forfeits, even if that knocks Bay View and Pulaski out of this fall's playoffs, certainly seems reasonable on the WIAA's part. However, extending the playoff ban into 2025 heaps additional punishment on players who had nothing to do with an administrator's screw-up.
Season's over for a Sec. 2 football team
With a new coach and 24 players on the first day of practice in August, the Coxsackie-Athens varsity football team looked ready to leave the combined 3-25 record since 2021 behind.
Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out that way, and the Riverhawks' season is over after an 0-4 start on the field in which they were outscored 142-20. Faced with a depleted roster with no seniors and no JV program, the school forfeited its past two games and administrators made the decision this week to end the season.
"This is obviously not something you ever want to do for the kids, but it was something I felt was probably in the best interest of the program and for the safety of the kids," AD Curtis Wilkinson told the Times Union.
On paper, the numbers look considerably better next year of the staff can keep the core of 18 potential returnees supplemented by 15 current freshmen.
• Coxsackie-Athens' forfeit this weekend to Hudson merely adds to a growing list of Section 2 games cut short or not played at all this season. Steve Grandin compiles results each week for the NYSSWA's Road To Syracuse website, and the list shows such games (plus an after-the-fact forfeit):
Week 0
Warrensburg 52/LG/Bolton, Green Tech 0 (game ended at halftime)
Brewster 1, Ballston Spa 0 (ineligible player; BSpa won game, 22-2)
Week 4
Canajoharie/Fort Plain/OESJ 1, Coxsackie-Athens 0 (game not played)
Week 5
Glens Falls 7, Broadalbin-Perth 0 (game ended first quarter due to BP injury)
Warrensburg/LG/Bolton 40, Chatham 0 (game ended first quarter)
Granville/Whitehall 1, Taconic Hills 0 (game not played)
Gloversville 1, Coxsackie-Athens 0 (game not played)
Week 6
Hudson 1, Coxsackie-Athens 0 (game not played)
Warrensburg/LG/Bolton 1, Rensselaer/Loudonville Christian 0 (game not played)
It's not just an Albany-area issue. A quick look at Central New York shows half a dozen forfeits in Section 3 thus far, and forfeits show up rather routinely in other sections as well as in the PSAL.
Full Week 6 schedule
Week 6 schedule for ranked teams
