KATV’s Jason Pederson reports on an abrupt improvement of the fortunes of the Mountain Pine High School football team after a star player previously ineligible as a transfer student became eligible by marrying a Mountain Pine student and moving in with her family.
The team has been unbeaten in seven games since. The back story:
Rule 16, Subsection A, Exception #6 states that if a “…student is married and living with a spouse…who had an established domicile in the district one year prior to the marriage…” then he or she is instantly eligible.
On August 31st Mountain Pine Superintendent Bobby Applegate emailed the AAA asking “What all information did you say you needed for our student to become eligible when he gets married besides the license?”
A week later Applegate provided the AAA with a marriage certificate with the names of two 17 year-old students on it.
Applegate also provided an email from the bride’s father confirming that the teens had married “due to a certain circumstances.”
The student in question played in the second game of the season and the Red Devils haven’t lost since.
No one involved agreed to an interview with KATV, but the bride’s father, according to Pederson, “assures us that the primary reason for this union does not involve sports or eligibility.”