NYC basketball coaches cry foul after dozens of HS teams forced to forfeit over new rule
Over 70 New York City high school basketball teams were forced to forfeit their first games of the season because rosters weren’t posted by a strict new deadline.
Seventy-four Public School Athletic League teams were slapped with the penalty after failing to meet the new Nov. 18 cutoff. The earlier deadline was implemented this season after a cheating scandal last year involving age limit and academic eligibility.
On Friday, after widespread outrage in the sports community, the league began reinstating some games.
In the past teams weren’t required to upload their rosters to the PSAL website until a week before their first games.
The 14-game PSAL season kicks off for some schools next week but, for others, first league games aren’t until Dec. 3.
“They have bigger fish to fry in the PSAL than coaches who got a roster up 24 hours late,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt HS boys varsity coach Glenn Thomas told The Post. “The ones getting hurt most are our kids.”
The crackdown on cheating is welcomed, however.
“I think it’s good they’re coming in and trying to get the PSAL in order,” Thomas said.
He said early deadlines make it tough for some schools that have to wait for the fall sports season to wrap up before students are free to try out for basketball and coaches can make cuts. Players also have to submit medical and parental consent forms and fees, which take time to collect.
Longtime Benjamin N. Cardozo High School coach Ron Naclerio said there should have been a grace period for a the new roster rule.
“Coaches tried, many succeeded, [some] failed, because they didn’t have any courtesy extended to the next day,” he told The Post.
Naclerio said coaches can lose four hours of pay per forfeited game — around $250.
The league, which consists of about 700 basketball teams, is working to reinstate the first game for roughly half of the penalized teams who filed shortly after the deadline and met other requirements, according to Chalkbeat.
