The Georgia High School Association’s Board of Trustees voted 6-3 on Wednesday to grant a special waiver of a by-law preventing teams from playing in a national tournament. The decision clears the way for Wheeler High School to accept an invitation for its boys basketball team to play in a national tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York next month.
GHSA Executive Director Gary Phillips originally informed the Cobb County school that it could not accept the invitation, which came after Wheeler captured the class AAAAAA championship last Saturday night with a 59-58 win over Pebblebrook. That decision, at the urging of the Georgia Legislature, was reconsidered and a special waiver granted to allow Wheeler to participate in the tournament.
Currrent GHSA by-law 2.64 (a) (2) provides that “Approval will not be granted for any tournament, meet, or other contest to qualify for and/or determine a national high school championship.” That by-law is not in conflict with O.C.G.A. Section 20-2-316.1(b) which allows individual students to participate in out-of-season all-star contests and is not applicable to the current situation involving the Wheeler invitation.
However, the GHSA recognizes that participation by its member schools in legitimate nationally recognized tournaments held after the season has ended may be appropriate in some instances, and the GHSA Executive Committee will take up that issue at its spring meeting on April 13 and attempt to formulate a mechanism for such contests to be considered for approval by the GHSA.
That meeting would have been too late to help Wheeler, so Phillips convened an emergency conference call with the nine-member Board of Trustees late Wednesday afternoon. After the vote came back in favor of a waiver, Phillips informed Wheeler school officials of the decision early Wednesday evening.
“We felt this was a special case and, as such, deserved consideration for a waiver,” said Phillips.
