How Do You Spell Fraud?

Ok, they fined Mueller? Good. They made them forfeit their regular season games? Good. But to let them keep the state title - because the ineligible player didn't play who had played during the season to get them to the state title - is a travesty.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association has ordered Highlands High School to forfeit most of its 2004 regular-season football games and fined the team's coach, but will allow the team to retain its state championship in a series of sanctions imposed over star player Michael Mitchell's transfer to the school.

The sanctions were outlined in a letter from KHSAA Commissioner Brigid DeVries to Highlands High School principal Elgin Emmons, said Michael Bouldin, Mitchell's attorney. Bouldin said today he had discussed the letter with school board attorney Don Ruberg.

According to Bouldin, the association put Highlands on probation, fined Highlands football coach Dale Mueller $1,500 and ruled that the coach will not be allowed to coach the first two scrimmages and first two games of the season next year.

"I don't know what actions Highlands has taken," Bouldin said.

Bob Schneider, a football coach at Newport Central Catholic High School and a member of the KHSSA board of control, said the sanctions were decided at a meeting Monday. The school has until April 15 to appeal that decision, he said.

The KHSAA letter, Bouldin said, says Highlands can keep its state championship title because Mitchell did not play in the championship game. Because Mitchell also did not play in the first game of the season, Highlands' season record will go from 14-1 to 2-13.

Emmons would not discuss the contents of the letter, but said he has been in contact with DeVries over the past week.

"Right now, unless the KHSAA makes some public announcement, I have no comment," Emmons said.

"It is my understanding the Michael Mitchell situation is an unresolved situation. I understand the case is still being resolved in the courts. We have been very respectful of the authority of the KHSAA and the courts throughout this. We've been subject to whatever authority we've found ourselves subject to."

School district officials also declined to confirm the letter.

"It's my understanding the KHSAA has levied some sanctions regarding the Michael Mitchell issue," said Brad Fennell, a Fort Thomas school board member. "our position is certainly that we've handled everything above board." He would not specify what those sanctions were.

The letter is the latest in an ongoing battle over the eligibility of Mitchell, who transferred from Covington Catholic High School to Highlands in January 2004 after the Mitchell family moved from Florence to Fort Thomas.

The KHSAA's regulations usually require transfer students to sit out a year, but the association has made exceptions. It would not, however, waive the rule for Mitchell.

Mitchell and his family and the school took the issue to court, insisting the transfer was part of a bona fide move from one residence to another. He played the football season under a temporary injunction signed by then-Circuit Court Judge William Wehr.

The KHSAA appealed that judgment and eventually won in the Court of Appeals, which upheld the association's refusal to give Mitchell a waiver.

That decision is what kept Mitchell out of the championship game, which Highlands won 22-6 over Boyle County.

Mitchell's parents have appealed the ruling in the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Because Mitchell had played the fall season in 2004, the KHSAA ruled that he would have to sit out the spring sports season.

Another court battle overturned that decision in March when Campbell Circuit Judge Julie Reinhardt Ward signed a permanent injunction declaring Mitchell eligible to play baseball and run track this spring. Bouldin said the KHSAA has filed a notice that it intends to appeal the permanent injunction ruling.

The KHSAA bylaws say it may punish a school for using an ineligible player. But school board attorney Ruberg said in documents filed in November that allowing the association to punish a school after the fact allows it to effectively ignore court orders.

He said Mitchell was playing legally because a court had allowed that play through the injunctions.