Class Act Meets Crass Act

The inexorable march of litigation into youth sports took another giant step forward yesterday when Halfway Down Highschool in Ohio announced that it had retained the legal firm of Sue, Cheatem & Spend to represent it in it’s on going battle with the Ohio State High School Sports Inflexibility Counsel. The law firm – whose Latin motto is Eef Gloveicus Non-Fiticus Thou Mustus Acquiticus – will appoint enfant terrible, Robert Slimeball, as lead counsel. Slimeball, who studied at the prestigious Institute Of Defending The Indefensible, will assume his duties as soon as he can complete his current work representing Roman Polanski.

Halfway Down is a private organization vaguely described as a ‘school’ in its glossy sales brochure. Students typically pay exorbitant fees to be able to shield themselves from the sort of poor life lessons they would receive in the public system. Honor, integrity, acceptance of authority, and not giving your trophy back until the law intervenes are the values of the school.

The case arises out of the OSHSSIC’s ruling that HD fielded an ineligible player in final of the Division VI Parental Bragging Rights soccer tournament. HD won a thrilling, tightly contested final 17-0 against Hapless Public in a match played in front of a record crowd of 13 spectators and two dogs.

With the trophy presented and the game forgotten about 15 minutes after the final whistle, HD’s marquee player was already at the airport departure gate on her way back to Florida’s Hotshot Soccer School when a Hapless Public parent started typing a venomous anonymous allegation of ineligibility to the local gutter press.

HD’s position is that the player was at all times enrolled with the school in a distance learning capacity by virtue of the fact that she was in constant contact with her classmates via the MySpace social networking website. They point out that by playing regularly for the Florida Hotshots she was in fact recovering from an injury, and medical records do indeed suggest that she was rehabbing a severely bruised ego picked up when the school lost in the final last year. School superintendent Jack Daniels commented “Having been in rehab for many years myself I understand the importance of these issues. I’d just like to point out that we won the game on the field and nothing else matters including my inability to read the rules. It is unfortunate that this young lady has been singled out. Nobody said a damn thing about the three girls playing up front for us who actually graduated in 1997, the goalie who played after we lowered our minimum pass rate requirements, or the long haired central defender who is actually a dude with his junk tucked away where the sun don’t shine”.

Speaking for OSHSSIC, director of public relations Tony Selfimportant pointed out; “The counsel is not here to assist in the development of the game in general or to encourage class acts/genuine prospects like this young player. Neither are we here to support the efforts of a youth soccer team who made a genuine attempt to excel in a sporting event. The counsel exists to demonstrate to the kids the level of incompetence which exists amongst the adults who manage their endeavors.”

The case will be heard in the Ohio Court of Frivolous Wastes Of Time and is expected to run for much longer than anyone really cares.