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IHSAA, Indian Creek take kid's eligibility despite no precedents but one restraining order
Gregg Doyel
Indianapolis Star
TRAFALGAR – Kohlton Scoggan’s senior season of high school football is gone, taken from him at the urging of Indian Creek.
The IHSAA, seeing no evil and hearing no evil, issued a condescending, tone-deaf defense of Indian Creek's recommendation that Scoggan be ineligible after transferring to Greenwood. Hiding behind its 173-page rulebook, the IHSAA uncovered its eyes long enough to find the black-and-white in a story with 50 shades of gray:
A restraining order against a longtime member of the football staff, a 44-year-old Indian Creek graduate who’d been sending inappropriate phone messages to Kohlton’s 15-year-old sister. Teammates saying they were coerced by Indian Creek coach Casey Gillin into making statements he cited to justify kicking Kohlton off the team. The unsolved mystery of a smashed mailbox. Disputed text messages and a deleted social media post.
Accusations of retaliation and intimidation.
After all that, Kohlton Scoggan was kicked off the team in February. A standout linebacker for Indian Creek, he had dreams of playing small college football, perhaps at safety. He finished among state leaders in tackles as a junior. Another season like that, and who knows?
Kohlton won’t get another season, and without a football scholarship, he won't go to college. Not unless something changes, quickly, in the hearts and minds of the leaders at Indian Creek and the IHSAA, hiding behind words like “bylaws” and “guidelines” to resolve a case that transcends those words.
Is there a bylaw in the IHSAA rulebook that addresses a kid leaving a school two months after his sister obtained a restraining order against an assistant coach? Is there a guideline that says there is no gray area, no wiggle room, when that same kid, alleging intimidation by the coach, wants to play somewhere else?
Doyel in 2021: 'Broken' IHSAA transfer system leads to 'bullying' of kids, parents
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This isn’t all you need to know about the way Indian Creek and the IHSAA have handled the transfer request of Kohlton Scoggan, but it’s a start.
First, this email from Indian Creek principal Luke Skobel, after I’d requested comment from him, Gillin and Indian Creek athletic director Derek Perry following my reading of the roughly 200 pages of official IHSAA transcripts.
“Thank you for reaching out to us about your story about a former Indian Creek student,” Skobel wrote. “Because of privacy issues, we cannot provide details about any student past or present. Speaking generally, we take very seriously the guidelines given to us by IHSAA. Anytime a transfer request comes to us, we answer the questions honestly, follow the bylaws, and adhere to any rulings made by the IHSAA and DOE (case review panel).”
Readers, don’t let him do that. Skobel passed the buck to the IHSAA, but its ruling was made at the request of Indian Creek, which argued strenuously and perhaps even unfairly – more on that later – against Scoggan’s request for varsity eligibility at Greenwood. And don't let Skobel pretend the restraining order doesn't exist.
My email in response asked Skobel for the bylaw about a transferring player’s 15-year-old sister getting inappropriate phone messages from an assistant coach, and the falling dominoes that led to the player's transfer.
"There’s no bylaw for that," I concluded in my email to Skobel. "That’s where the heart comes in. Can we talk about hearts then?"
Indian Creek's response to that: Nothing.
Second, these words from the Case Review Panel, a panel established by the IHSAA to be the second and final appeal of the transfer process, justifying holding Kohlton Scoggan to the same standard as any kid seeking a transfer for athletic reasons. As if the arguments on his behalf, most supported by a paper trail – namely the restraining order against the 2022 Indian Creek coach, but there’s more – are irrelevant.
“While a student could claim that not playing varsity may result in harm or burden to the student,” the panel wrote in its condescending final rejection, “Kohlton has provided no evidence that his inability to participate at the varsity level will cause him to suffer unduly or be a true burden to him. (He) will be able to participate in athletics at Greenwood for his senior year, as the eligibility limitation is only until October 28, 2023.”
Readers, don't let the IHSAA do that.
Only until Oct. 28? Greenwood’s regular season ends two weeks earlier, on Oct. 13.
Hey, Indiana, you comfortable with Indian Creek and the IHSAA doing this? What if Kohlton Scoggan were your son?
What if his 15-year-old sister were your daughter?
'If I was 16 I would date u and more lol'
It starts with those words on Snapchat in late December, from an Indian Creek assistant football coach to Kohlton’s sister, a manager on the football team last year. I’m not naming the coach out of concern for his own kid.
4:26 p.m.: If I was 16 I would date u and more lol
4:30 p.m.: I never get excitement until you snap me
Kohlton’s sister showed the messages to Kohlton, who told his parents, who told the school. Skobel says he acted accordingly.
“I immediately contacted the SRO (Indian Creek’s school resource officer), local law enforcement and department of child services,” Skobel wrote in his statement to the IHSAA, part of Scoggan’s transfer process, “and decided to remove (the assistant coach) from the football staff … I checked with law enforcement (and) was told the assistant coach had used poor judgment but had not done anything criminal.”
Kohlton’s parents asked Skobel to ban the now-former coach from campus, but Skobel declined.
“I did inform the parents they could pursue a restraining order,” Skobel wrote.
The parents obtained that restraining order Jan. 23 from a Johnson Superior Court judge, who found the coach “represents a credible threat to the safety of the (girl).”
Skobel then issued a letter of no trespassing to the former coach.
The father of Kohlton and his sister, as angry as you can imagine – and furious that he needed a restraining order to prevent the coach from attending games near his daughter – posted the restraining order on Facebook. It made a large noise in the small town of Trafalgar, and Joshua Scoggan deleted the post a day later.
But the damage, according to Kohlton and his family, was already done.
The damage to Kohlton, that is.
'They made me sign some random paper'
In the words of Kohlton Scoggan, in his statement to the IHSAA during his appeal for eligibility at Greenwood High:
“(Coach Gillin) began being different to me (at) weightlifting class at school. He would take pictures of me in between sets to try and say I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. Before this incident I was getting 100% on my participation points in (class) and after this happened it started going down and I was doing the same thing I would always do.
“He told one of my best friends at the time to be careful who he hangs out with and don’t be influenced by bad people. He would always call me or text me just to ask if I’m coming to after school weights. … Since our protective order got approved he hasn’t contacted me one time.
“It was just a few weeks after this where I got accused of destroying a mailbox.”
Right. The mailbox. The details of that story can be as long or short as you want – I’ve read everything the IHSAA has on it – but here’s my understanding: Someone destroyed the mailbox of an Indian Creek family in early February. With Kohlton already at the center of so much drama, teammates teased him that he’d done it. Eventually Kohlton went along with the joke, saying sure, he’d done that.
“He was kidding,” his father says.
Writes Kohlton in his IHSAA paperwork:
“The day I got accused of this (Coach Gillin) followed me around the entire time and listened to every conversation I had. This made me very uncomfortable and even my friends noticed it and were saying stuff to me.”
The family met with Skobel, who said he couldn’t determine who destroyed the mailbox.
“I did notify (Kohlton’s mother) that I was not holding Kohlton responsible for the incident,” Skobel wrote in his IHSAA statement, “as I was still unclear if he was the vandal or not.”
That didn’t stop Skobel’s football coach, Gillin, from citing the mailbox incident – during a meeting with Kohlton’s family in February – as one of his reasons for removing Kohlton from the team. Nor did it stop Indian Creek from repeatedly citing the mailbox incident in its statements to the IHSAA, arguing against his eligibility at Greenwood. Gillin obtained statements from a handful of players, saying Kohlton had told them he’d destroyed the mailbox. The IHSAA put those statements into the official record.
Kohlton received text messages from four of those players, all saying the same thing: Gillin “made” them do it.
Text from one teammate: “They just had me say I heard someone talk about hitting a mailbox in the locker room. … Had no choice. They made me and (three other teammates).”
Text from another: “I thought you weren’t the one who did it … they made me sign some random paper.”
Pictures of those text messages aren't in the official record, in which IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig is quoted accusing the Scoggan family of "probably one of the most egregious, inappropriate things I've seen in my time ... tampering with a witness."
Apparently the earlier request to those same players, from the Indian Creek coach who controls their playing time, isn’t tampering with a witness.
Other evidence the IHSAA didn't allow into the official record, according to Brittany Fisher, Kholton's mother, and supported by a reference in the official transcript: A series of text messages from Casey Gillin to Kohlton, before their relationship went south, asking Kohlton to try to recruit a kid from Franklin High to Indian Creek – and coaching Kohlton on what to tell the Franklin kid to put on his transfer form, so he could have immediate eligibility.
Irony, you call that.
Two main characters, friends for 25 years
Why does it matter so much to Indian Creek whether Kohlton Scoggan plays his senior season at Greenwood? Neither the principal, AD nor coach would speak with me, other than the email from Skobel, which prevented me from asking about the connection the former coach – the subject of the restraining order – has to Derek Perry, the AD. They attended school together in the 1990s, and almost 30 years later Perry has utilized his classmate in a number of roles, not just football assistant.
Perhaps that 25-year friendship explains why, as Kohlton Scoggan wrote in his statement to the IHSAA, “(Coach Gillin) began being different to me (after) our protective order got approved.”
Whatever the case, Indian Creek and the IHSAA decided to keep Scoggan off the field this year at Greenwood after a process that doesn’t smack of fair play: Indian Creek cherry-picking from the available facts to support its recommendation against eligibility and the IHSAA going along with it, even blocking exculpatory testimony – the text messages from teammates saying “they made me” accuse Scoggan – regarding the mailbox incident.
Meanwhile, the potential impact of an Indian Creek assistant coach sending inappropriate messages to Kohlton’s sister one month before his decision to transfer has been glossed over. In the IHSAA’s own words – in its bylaws, naturally – the IHSAA noted in its rejection of Kohlton’s appeal that a student-athlete must show a unique, compelling reason beyond athletics for the transfer.
“Here,” the IHSAA decided, “there was no unique, compelling or bad conditions at Indian Creek which drove Kohlton to leave Indian Creek.”
What exactly is the IHSAA saying here?
Is an assistant coach sending inappropriate messages to a 15-year-old girl not bad?
Is the family of the girl, whose brother plays football, getting a restraining order against that coach not unique?
Is the head coach, after having that coach removed from his staff, soon kicking the girl’s brother off the team not compelling?
IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig, declining to go deeply into the specifics of this case for privacy reasons, said the IHSAA does its best with “really, really tough cases.”
“There is room within the bylaws under rule 17-8.1 for a waiver (on behalf of) the student-athlete,” he says. “It has to be something egregious that is completely without the control of the student-athlete, and I understand there could be some debate there on this one. But we have granted waivers if they meet the standard, and we’ve even changed a school’s position. Those cases, you or nobody else ever sees.”
Fair point.
'To me it looked like a set-up'
For years the IHSAA transfer process has been described by state officials as "unprofessional,” “insulting,” “condescending” and “bullying,” and that’s not by parents or kids or even the local newspaper. That’s by members of the IHSAA’s own Case Review Panel, a nine-person mixture of parents, administrators and state Department of Education officials.
A Marion County Superior Court judge has accused IHSAA staff members of “bad faith and bullying" during the transfer process. Several judges have overturned egregious eligibility rulings against the student, many of them after an athlete’s family has hired an attorney to be in the IHSAA conference room to witness the hearings.
The IHSAA addressed that last year … by removing lawyers from the IHSAA conference room for hearings. They can sit outside the closed door, but cannot see or hear what is going on inside.
Seriously.
That’s a large-angle view of what can feel like a kangaroo court. Take a smaller look, from the perspective of Kohlton’s father, Joshua, a retired construction worker who showed up at the IHSAA offices on North Meridian Street on May 2 for Kohlton’s initial appeal.
“I’d never been to the IHSAA – this was my first experience,” Joshua Scoggan says. “They let me in there, and (AD) Derek Perry, (principal) Luke Skobel and (coach) Casey Gillin are already sitting in this guy’s office, talking like old friends. I’m like, ‘What the (heck)? I flipped out. That dude was (IHSAA assistant commissioner) Brian Lewis.”
In the hearing, Joshua Scoggan says, “Brian Lewis was asking questions, and he wasn’t even finished before (Indian Creek officials) were already answering. ... They said (Kohlton’s transfer) was denied, and said it was for athletic reasons. Not that it was based on my son got retaliated upon, targeted, bullied because I exposed one of their coaches (for acting inappropriately) and you guys didn’t like it so you kicked my son off the team.”
The perspective of Kohlton’s mother, Brittany Fisher:
“We all walked in,” she says, “and I was like, ‘What the hell? I thought the IHSAA was supposed to be on the kid’s side. Why is he talking to the school that doesn’t want Kohlton to play?' To me it looked like it was a set-up.”
At the hearing, conducted around a large conference table, Lewis and Neidig of the IHSAA sat next to the Indian Creek coach, opposite Kohlton and his family. Greenwood officials were in a corner. The view is intimidating.
"It's like we're on trial," Brittany Fisher says.
Neidig’s response:
“I understand the parents had a concern with Mr. Lewis meeting with Indian Creek,” he says. “We’ve worked really hard to change the process and make it less intimidating. When parents come in, I meet with them and go over the entire process and what they can expect for the day, and assistant commissioners meet with the sending school and receiving school to go over the process.
“I understand what (Kohlton’s) mom perceived that to be, but I can assure you we were not trying to set a ‘gotcha’ for parents.”
Meanwhile, Kohlton Scoggan is attending Greenwood, unable to play or even practice. The IHSAA granted him partial eligibility, which means he can play on the junior varsity, but he’s a senior. Greenwood’s coaches have told Kohlton they can’t give those developmental snaps to a senior, and you understand that. Greenwood is not the problem here.
The 2023 high school season rolls along. Greenwood has played three of its nine regular-season games, including a 42-28 victory against Indian Creek on Aug. 25, but the regular season ends Oct. 13 – two weeks before Kohlton becomes eligible.
“Kohlton expressed to the IHSAA he just wanted to play in college,” says Brittany, a USPS rural carrier and single mother of six. “That’s all he wanted in all of this. He said if he doesn’t play football he’s not going to college. We can’t afford it.”
Without intervention from a judge or the state Department of Education, Kohlton Scoggan’s life trajectory has been altered by events out of his control – compelling, bad and unique events triggered by an assistant coach sending inappropriate Snapchat messages to his 15-year-old sister.
Are we OK with this, Indiana?
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09-07-2023, 08:24 AM
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