Allen Amuimuia started at center for Pulaski Academy on Friday night in Utah after the 16-year-old’s family fought his one-game suspension in court.
The 280-pound teenager won a court victory Friday morning when Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza temporarily blocked the Arkansas Activities Association from suspending him from the game.
The ruling did not mean the teen had a court order to play football. Putting him into the game was left up to the Little Rock private school, but Pulaski Academy Coach Kevin Kelley said after his team’s 37-23 loss to Salt Lake City East on Friday night that the junior did start the game.
“We’re going to do exactly what the AAA says,” said Kelley, who said he had no comment on Piazza’s ruling.
The teen’s mother sued the association, which regulates high school sports in Arkansas, on Wednesday, complaining that her son had been ejected from last week’s Sept. 2 game over wrongful accusations he punched Nathan Simonton of Page High School in Sand Springs, Okla., during the Bruins’ 56-25 season-opening victory.
Both were thrown out of the game for fighting, but association rules also impose a one-game suspension for the next game on Arkansas players.
In the lawsuit, the boy’s mother, 47-year-old Tara Amuimuia, said her son has a lot at stake in football. He’s trying to get a football scholarship to college. Forcing him to miss the Salt Lake City game would cut him out of 15 percent of the school’s 10-game regular season, she argued. She did not testify at the 24-minute hearing.
The teen’s attorney told the judge the boy “swiped” at the other player with an open hand but he didn’t make contact.
Attorney Sam Hilburn said the teen had been provoked because the other player had put Amuimuia in a headlock and pulled off his helmet. That was the third time he’d done that to Amuimuia, Hilburn told the judge.
Piazza did not take a position on whether Amuimuia had been fighting, although he said the boy seemed to be retaliating against the other player after watching four clips of the incident, two of them in slow motion.
The judge said he agreed with arguments by the association that it can’t be and shouldn’t be required to review every disputed call made by a referee or umpire.
But Piazza sided with the Amuimuias because he said he found merit in arguments by Hilburn that the teen could not go through the association’s appeal process in time for a decision before Friday’s game.
Court rules generally require anyone challenging a decision by a regulating agency must go through the agency’s appeal process before filing a lawsuit.
Piazza said he would only block the suspension for at most a month, and he urged association officials to conduct that appeal as soon as possible.
“If the young man deserves to be punished, then let’s get that done before the end of the season,” the judge said.
The lawsuit contends that throwing him out of one game and suspending him from a second hurts his reputation as a player and hurts his chances of getting a scholarship to play in college.
At Friday’s hearing, Hilburn told the judge his client is a divorced mother of two whose oldest son needs that scholarship because his family couldn’t otherwise afford to send him to college.
Students who attend Pulaski Academy can pay up to $10,000 a year in tuition, though financial aid is available based on need.
Association attorney Ed McCorkle urged the judge not to intervene at all. He said he was sympathetic to the boy and his mother, but Pulaski Academy officials know what the association’s rules are and signed an agreement in May to follow them.
“I’m sure he’s a fine young man who’s doing the best he can. But he got into a fight,” McCorkle told the judge. “You’ve got to abide by the rules. Unfortunately, it’s a big game [suspension], and unfortunately, this young man is the center.
“I’m sorry for this kid, but it happens every Friday night. The officials make the calls, and we abide by them. If we have to start looking at film for every game, there will be no end to it.”
McCorkle also noted that Pulaski Academy hired the referees for that game and that the school did not appeal Amuimuia’s punishment.
Pulaski Academy could go ahead and let the boy play, he told the judge, but there could be “consequences” for the school if the association later determines it had allowed an ineligible player to participate.
“At this point, the order stands and he can play the game [Friday night],” McCorkle said in a phone interview later Friday. “I don’t know what will develop in the future, but I don’t anticipate anything else occurring to change the situation.”
McCorkle said during his 35 years as the attorney for the association, this is the first time he has dealt with a court injunction for an ejection. He said the appeal will be held within the judge’s 30-day window.
Lance Taylor, executive director of the Arkansas Activities Association, in a phone interview later Friday referred questions specifically about the ruling to McCorkle.
“We do have rules in our rulebook that all our member schools have agreed to,” he said. “The incident took place, and our officials did a great job in handling it. And here we are today.”
The judge did not address whether the teen had broken any rules, and the parties argued over what rules were at issue.
Amuimuia’s attorney said the Arkansas association has adopted the rules established by the National Federation of High Schools, but that the state group’s sanctions for fighting were more stringent than the federation’s.
The national group does allow expelling players for fighting, but its rules require physical contact, Hilburn said. The federation also does not require the one-game suspension, he said.
“He did take a swipe. I think he used a lot more restraint than I would have under those circumstances,” the lawyer said.
McCorkle told the judge that Joey Walters, the association’s deputy executive director, was prepared to testify that the videos showed the boy broke the rules against fighting. Walters and associate executive director Nick Lasker attended the proceedings but did not testify.
“It’s clear he’s violating National Federation rules,” Mc-Corkle told the judge.
Hilburn also questioned the propriety of the association potentially punishing the school because the teen tried to assert his right to due process in challenging the accusations against him. The association should have a provision for players to challenge accusations and penalties that they believed were unfair, he said.
“It seems to me with young people, you want to get it right,” Hilburn said. “If you don’t correct wrong decisions, you’re not teaching the right things.”
Information for this article was contributed by Jeremy Muck and Jason Yates of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Sports on 09/10/2016