Internet Party Photos and the NDHSAA Ineligibility Rules

[balla45]

Seems to me these harsh rules are turning hids away from high school sports. It's no wonder summer leagues are becoming so popular, with higher compitition and less oversight, you get the best athletes. High school sports are soon becoming a thing of the past, I know high school hockey is slowly turning into Midget hockey. With more games,and higher caliber hockey, more and more talented players are leaving their schools. But I guess mabye this is what the schools want, that way they don't have to pay for traveling, meals, equipment. Thanks NDHSAA!!!

The coaches who are running successful competitve summer traveling programs are not even going to look at a player who is ineligible to play on their high school teams. It takes a lot of discipline and dedication and money to really excel in these programs. They are not going to spend their time with players that are going to try and explain why it was too difficult to avoid drinking. They don't have all the specific rules because they have the ablility to not even give you a chance if they don't want to.

I don't know if I can agree with you here. A LOT of players drink in the summer and get caught, it just doesn't get talked about. I can't think of a specific number, but there are a lot of people that I know have been caught drinking in some form or another that participated in athletics last year.

[HockeyHigh]

I don't know if I can agree with you here. A LOT of players drink in the summer and get caught, it just doesn't get talked about. I can't think of a specific number, but there are a lot of people that I know have been caught drinking in some form or another that participated in athletics last year.

Not many are caught, but I can near guarantee you that at least 50% of athletes in High School have drank to an extent. Given that, any one of these kids could have had a photo taken of them and posted on the internet completely anonymously by anyone near, even outside of the window looking in on him/her doing it alone. I still think it's wrong, even given the high amount of people that do it.
For whomever said they need to learn life lessons, that's the point of the restriction, as well as the suspension. However, I do not feel that the 'Guilty by Association' rule is fair, in any way. If it is clear that the athlete is drinking, heck, throw him/her on a 6 month suspension. However, I don't feel it's right that they can be given the same punishments as a person at the same party that got a minor. If the student is completely sober and cannot be proven to have drank anything, I feel they're fine. If they were drinking, and it's clear, go ahead and full on punish. This will hopefully cause athletes to be cautious about what they consume, rather than do the "Well I'm here anyways, if I get caught I might as well get caught drinking."

[LarryEagle]

However there are tons of other situations where a picture may be taken with alcohol in the background. In public? Or im sure many atheletes parents keep alcohol in the home, what if the parents are having a drink and they show up in the background of a photo of the athlete? should that still result in a suspension? its a fine line they draw between distinguishing being at a party, or merely being near alcohol.