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A temporary restraining order enabled a Michigan high school football team to participate in the playoffs last week, and a judge will rule by Monday on whether the team can continue to play after the eligibility dispute landed in a Grand Rapids court on Friday.
Lawyers for a player on the Catholic Central football team and the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) squared off in court Friday over whether the football team can continue its playoff run.
Kent County Circuit Judge Paul Denenfeld plans to issue a decision “sometime Monday,” according to Fox17-TV, ahead of the team’s next scheduled playoff game on Tuesday night.
Catholic Central defeated Comstock Park last Tuesday after a temporary restraining order was issued following allegations that a transferred player on Catholic Central should have been ruled ineligible because evidence was presented that his family had not moved from its previous district.
“Here we did have a rule book at issue, a handbook, that is extensively created with rules that are meant for these situations,” an attorney for the MHSAA said.
According to the MHSAA, a video was presented to them by a woman named Angela Goyette, who claimed to be interested in purchasing the ineligible player’s family home to prove that it had not moved, as initially contended. Goyette is a friend of the wife of the football coach at Comstock Park, according to reports, but she did not attend Friday’s hearing. Court records, per Fox17, showed that the student’s grandfather was giving the home tour seen in the video.
“They come to find out the rival they were supposed to play that week, Comstock Park, had actually been on what I would call, these are my words, a witch hunt,” an attorney for Catholic Central student-athlete Noah Zinea said. “Comstock Park was hell-bent on making sure that there would not be a football contest between them and Catholic Central.
“So a few days before that decision of ineligibility had been made, Comstock sent in Angie Goyette, who I’ll characterize as a secret shopper, into the home of the student that was determined to be ineligible, his former home.”
Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s athletic director, Mike Jacob, said in court that multiple investigations found the student was eligible to play. The athletic director testified that he verified voter registration changes and driver’s license changes with the secretary of state.
