On Aug. 27, Southlake Carroll senior Daxx Garman's world was turned upside down.
The District 7-5A Executive Committee, comprised of principals and athletic directors from the eight schools in the district (minus Southlake Carroll), voted 4-3 on the day of the Dragons' season opener in Copperas Cove (a loss) that the move-in from Oklahoma would not be eligible to play for Carroll in his senior season.
Garman, an Arizona commit, and his family filed an official appeal with the University Interscholastic League, the governing body of Texas high school competition, following the eligibilty denial that was spurred by a TV report saying the Garmans moved to Southlake for athletic purposes.
On Tuesday, that appeal was heard by the UIL and in perhaps the most open-and-shut case in the history of the UIL, Garman's appeal was denied, meaning his time as a football player in Texas public schools is done, just as he was suspended from playing in Oklahoma last year for DOING THE EXACT SAME THING when he moved from one town to another for "athletic purposes".
Look, transferring happens all the time, and it's really hard to prove that they are for athletic purposes only. Usually, these cases are ruled in favor of the athlete, but Garman's parents are the ones to blame in this case.
Looking at it strictly from Daxx's perspective, you have to feel bad for the kid. His high school football career ended one year early, and he's been moved around like crazy by his shoulder-ink, ice-bag-throwing dad to play for football powerhouses even though he already had a scholarship offer from Arizona. But you can't feel too bad because he and his family (however you want to look at it) broke the rules, TWICE.
The slam dunk on this case was another TV report showing a clause in the Garman's lease on the home they rented in Southlake saying that if Garman weren't allowed to play football at Southlake Carroll, they could break the lease. If that doesn't show it was for athletic purposes only, I don't know what it shows.
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Carroll has since won two games, both in nail-biting fashion over teams they would have usually beaten pretty easily in the past while rotating two quarterbacks. It's clear the Southlake monster is no longer alive on the gridiron, at least not this year, and you'd have to think all of this commotion over Garman has been a big distraction for the team and head coach Hal Wasson.
So what do we take from all of this? Again, deep down you have to feel bad for Daxx, and Daxx alone. Partly because he can't play for the Dragons and partly because his parents let him down.
So where does he go from here? He has four options, I suppose. Stay in Southlake and finish high school at Carroll, which according to his lease, won't happen. Two, he could go back to his school in Oklahoma and finish high school. Doubtful. Three, he could get his GED and pay some high-dollar quarterback coach to prepare him for Arizona, where he will enroll in January. Or finally, he could go to a TAPPS school in the area, which don't live under UIL rules, and play football while getting his diploma. Who knows which one he'll choose, but we haven't seen the last of Daxx Garman yet.
