High school football scandal in St. Louis

[Batman]

Holy moly, this one is a doozy.
St. Louis football power Cardinal Ritter Prep forfeited seven wins, canceled the rest of its season, and fired its entire coaching staff for using a suspended star player in the season opener. They gave him a different number and a fake name, and even did interviews talking about how the "freshman" had come out of nowhere to earn playing time. The scam started to unravel when someone at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noticed "Marvin Burks" had the same tattoos on his forearm as star RB Bill Jackson.

Cardinal Ritter football season over, coaches fired, athletic director retiring after investigation

Top-ranked small school Cardinal Ritter may have used ineligible player

 

[FileNotFound]

It's always the tattoos.

 

[playthrough]

Holy crap that is incredible.

 

[Spartan Squad]

And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling reporters!

 

[Batman]

And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling reporters!

One of the follow-up stories was about a Cardinal Ritter opponent who was upset they wouldn't get to play the No. 1 team in the state.
So there is a new marketing slogan for The Post-Dispatch: Costing kids scholarships since 1844.

 

[Batman]

Meanwhile, Cardinal Ritter announced it has hired a new baseball coach:

 

[HanSenSE]

Parochial schools cheat just as hard as public schools!

 

[Azrael]

character builder

 

[Scout]

It took seven games?

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

The coach and his staff are something else.

 

[Azrael]

clear eyes
full heart
can't coach ever again in the state of Missouri

 

[ThomsonONE]

The interviewer in the clip was utterly useless, should be fired. All the coach said was that a mistake was made, the interviewer never asked any questions to find out how this happened, never asked who else was involved, never asked anything! If he has a journalism degree his tuition was a complete waste of money. Ridiculous.

 

[Chef2]

It's Missouri.
The stupid bastards can't even cheat right.

 

[swingline]

It's Missouri.
The stupid bastards can't even cheat right.

Certainly not as well as those at KU.

 

[justgladtobehere]

I am amused by this story of prep sports run amok way too much. It's a subplot from a teen comedy come to life.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

It took seven games?

That's the thing - the player was ejected from the final game last year, so he was suspended for the first game this year. That first game was up in the Chicago suburbs, so they did the switch, figured no one from St. Louis would notice and moved on with the season.

I'm surprised that it took 7 games for anyone to notice what happened, but also surprised they didn't get away with it.

 

[TigerVols]

It's been 28 years since I covered my last HS FB game – how many kids these days have tats?

Tennessee's frosh QB has a full sleeve of them.

 

[HanSenSE]

Hoping Poynter or some other watchdog group does a "how they got the story" story. I'm intrigued.

 

[CD Boogie]

It took seven games?

Gotta hand it to the kids for keeping their mouths shut. Usually it's the fellow students who blow up the POIN cases. But here, they all kept silent.

 

[CD Boogie]

It's been 28 years since I covered my last HS FB game – how many kids these days have tats?

Tennessee's frosh QB has a full sleeve of them.

A handful per team, at least.