Mother’s Facebook Post Costs Football Team 3 Wins

A mother complaining on Facebook about her sons’ messy room led to Class 1A football power Perry County vacating three wins.

The Vikings, ranked third in Class 1A, will not be able to count wins over Cornersville, Forrest and Lewis County because they used two ineligible players.

Offensive linemen Rodney and Ryan Belasic were declared ineligible by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association because their entire family does not live in Perry County.

“(Perry County) inadvertently played ineligible athletes in the first three ballgames,” TSSAA Executive Director Bernard Childress said. “It was two brothers that transferred. They got a residence in Perry County, but they had not vacated their residence completely in Henry County.”

Perry County’s record is 2-0. The win over Cornersville win was a Region 6-A game.

Childress said school officials thought the players’ entire family had moved to Perry County during the summer.

“But the mother actually works in Henry County, and she posted on her Facebook page that she sent the kids back to Perry County for the week and that she would not see them again until Friday night,” Childress said. “Then, later on her Facebook page, she posted, ‘How can two boys mess up their room as badly as they do when they’re only here on Saturday and Sunday?’ ”

Coaches and administrators in the Perry County area reported the Facebook posts to the TSSAA, which began interviewing the family.

When Childress notified Perry County of the potential problem two weeks ago, Vikings Coach Michael Harrison removed the Belasics from the team.

“We are sorry that this investigation happened and that the two players were deemed ineligible,” Harrison said in an emailed statement. “We hope to put this investigation behind us and move forward.”

The TSSAA defines a bona fide change of residence as “a move from one community to another that justifies a change of schools. Where a family continues to maintain a previous residence for the residential purposes of that family or any of its members, the move is not one that justifies a change of schools for purposes of the TSSAA bylaws.”

Cornersville, Forrest and Lewis County will keep the losses from Perry County on their records.

Individual statistics from those games still count. Quarterback Jacob Tucker is 93 yards from breaking the state career record for total offense and 13 touchdowns from the state career record.