Shawnee's Tucker will not play
I'm personally glad to see this. The dude kick another kid. He should be suspended, regardless of whether he was fighting back or not.
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Shawnee's Tucker Brown sidelined for playoffs
By Francisco Ojeda
The Oklahoman
The Class 5A football playoffs resume Saturday without Shawnee quarterback Tucker Brown because the Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed just who has the authority over high school sports.
Tramel: Ruling belongs on field
By a 8-to-1 vote, the state Supreme Court upheld a two-game suspension Thursday and threw out a temporary injunction that would have kept Brown in the playoffs. Brown was suspended by the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association after kicking a Tulsa Washington player late in a Nov. 19 playoff game.
The justices said Thursday that because the association is voluntary, the court needed an extraordinary reason to intervene. “Absent fraudulent, collusive, unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious behavior, this court may not overturn a voluntary association’s enforcement of its rules.” The court did not find Brown’s penalty was unjust.
“It did reaffirm to the members of the association that we can impose the rules,” said Danny Rennels, the association’s executive secretary. “And that they can be defended if necessary. We are pleased that the rules are upheld and the supreme court moved as quickly as they did.
“It reaffirms our rules.”
And the ruling keeps together the governing body’s authority in all the athletic endeavors in Oklahoma.
“They are untouchable,” said Shawnee coach Billy Brown, who is also Tucker’s father. “They answer to no one. The message sent by the OSSAA is that they can do what they want to do.”
The Brown family sought the injunction Nov. 23.
The Browns wanted the two-game suspension to begin in the 2006 season, when Tucker will be a senior.
Brown did not seek a rehearing.
That means Shawnee and Tulsa East Central will play after three-week wait. The teams will play at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Choctaw High School.
“I’m not surprised,” Billy Brown said of the court decision. “I’m just disappointed on how it’s been handled from day one. The Booker T. kids get away untouched. The OSSAA keeps saying they abide by the rule, but three kids should have been ejected.”
Said Tucker Brown: “Yeah, I’m glad it’s over. I don’t think it was the right decision, though. That’s the only bad thing, I guess.”
The decision ends a controversy that drew national attention from the likes of CBS, USA Today and CNN. Even Gov. Henry, a Shawnee native, said the referees overreacted.
The court’s lone dissenter was Justice Rudolph Hargrave, who was born in Shawnee and lives in Wewoka. Billy Brown coached at Wewoka from 1990-99.
The controversy began Nov. 19 in Shawnee’s 14-10 quarterfinal victory over Tulsa Washington. With 19 seconds left, Tucker Brown was taking a knee to run out the clock when Tulsa Washington’s Jermaine Holmes jumped offside and grabbed him by the helmet. Brown kicked Holmes.
Game officials immediately threw penalty flags.
On the previous play, though, Holmes apparently had punched a Shawnee player and was not penalized.
After the kick, game officials met to sort out penalties and Tulsa Washington coach Antwain Jimmerson went on the field to talk with officials. Shawnee’s coaches were told to remain on the sideline.
“We never said Tucker did not do the kick,” Billy Brown said. “But it’s an arbitrary rule. The others didn’t get kicked out or even flagged.”
The Brown family received a temporary injunction from Lincoln County District Judge Paul Vassar on Nov. 23. Vassar said it was an “impropriety” that Jimmerson was allowed to converse with officials before Tucker Brown was ejected.
Steve Campbell, the official who ejected Brown, testified in district court that the Tulsa coaches had no influence on his decision. Campbell said he had made up his mind to eject Brown the instant he saw him kick the other player.
Campbell also ejected Tulsa Washington senior Justin Fuselier for throwing a punch at a Shawnee player in the aftermath of the kicking incident.
The supreme court found “no evidence that the penalty was called in anything other than good faith and in conjunction with the rule of law by a referee who was positioned to see the play and who reacted immediately to the player’s actions.”
Now, the attention turns from the courtroom to the field, where top-ranked Tulsa East Central and No. 5 Shawnee will play Saturday. The winner will play Bixby Dec. 16 for the state championship.
“East Central just gets to play football now,” Cardinals coach Travis Hill said. “That’s what we’ve all been looking for. It was irrelevant to us who was going to be their quarterback. It’s exciting that there’s a conclusion to it. Today is the finalization of all that. It’s made a lot of kids happy.”
“We are glad that it’s resolved,” the association’s Rennels said. “It’s not anything that we wanted to go through. But it’s an important resolution to this. It’s been a difficult situation for all involved. There’s a decision, and now we can move forward.”
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