Prime Prep Academy, the school co-founded by Hall of Fame player Deion Sanders, is pulling out of some varsity sports this fall.
The charter school’s president said Wednesday the new school doesn’t have enough eligible players for varsity football and volleyball this season.
School leaders were frustrated and so was the district’s executive committee during a meeting Wednesday morning addressing problems with the athletic program.
Mid-August, board members voted to recommend banning all varsity play at Prime Prep for the 2012-13 school year to the state executive committee. The state committee is the only board with the authority to suspend a school from participating in athletics.
The local committee claims its been asking school leaders since February which teams they planned to organize, and will they have enough eligible players before setting up the sports schedule. The chair said Prime Prep never provided those answers.
President D.L. Wallace called for an appeal.
Wallace insists school leaders knew they wouldn’t have enough varsity players for a football team, because the majority of the team’s 36 players transferred from outside of the district and are ineligible. Wallace doesn’t believe all of the athletes in all varsity sports should be punished.
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The board and the school agree that it’s too late to organize varsity football and volleyball this year. Wallace said the school shouldn’t have a problem putting together a varsity boys basketball team by October to play this fall.
Sanders is the football coach and had planned to organize a stellar athletic program at the school. Local board members said if Prime Prep doesn’t follow the rules and have the proper paperwork filled out, athletes won’t be playing varsity sports.
