A high school in Peabody, Massachusetts, faces a year where its sports teams can't go postseason tournaments for allegedly violating a rule over accountability.
The president of Bishop Fenwick High School said Saturday the community was baffled by the decision from the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, announced Friday, to prohibit its student-athletes from post-season tournament play for the 2023-24 school year. He said Bishop Stanwick complied with all of the MIAA's rules.
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The MIAA is "now penalizing all of our kids in all of our sports in all seasons for the entire year," President Tom Nunan said, all over a fifth-year waiver for one student in one sport.
The MIAA's letter said Bishop Fenwick violated Rule 87.6, "which requires accountability on the part of its members," and called the conduct "serious, egregious and repeated." It didn't detail the conduct, but said the governing body's board of directors voted unanimously to mete out the punishment.
Nunan said the school accepted the result after their final appeal was denied over the fifth-year waiver and the student-athlete involved did not touch the field.
"We're trying to work with the MIAA as we speak," said Nunan, "to see if we can find a better outcome."
The school is set to hold a community meeting on Monday evening for its students to ask questions about the situation.
