WASHINGTON CITY, Utah — What’s fair in football? A level playing field or the right for everyone to play? That’s what a southern Utah youth football league is grappling with.
"I have 23 sons and a daughter on this team specifically, and it was very hard because I had to... I had to look them dead in their eyes last night and explain to them the situation," said Coach Elia Akau.
Akau's Pine View 8th-grade football team, based in Washington City, was told after two games of their short season that the rest of their games are being forfeited. The Southern Utah Nevada Youth Football League (SUNYFL) said Pine View has eight players who have been reclassified, or held back a grade.
SUNFYL executive director Jamie Turlington claimed the slightly older players leave eighth graders taking on those armed with the size and strength of ninth graders.
"This decision was based on safety and keeping other kids safe of being in any type of endangerment," said league owner Darry Alton. "If we have 116 teams and 115 are feeling pretty good about us, I feel pretty good about what we're doing."
The league has a massive footprint with 2,500 kids on 116 teams in Washington, Iron and Garfield counties, and the southern part of Nevada, not in Las Vegas.
Those affiliated with the Pine View team said the move to reclassify was to improve either an academic or an emotional situation; one player said it was for health reasons.
"So I have epilepsy, and in my seventh grade year, through the end of November all the way to March 2024, around that, I had constant seizures," explained left guard Beckham Tuha. "It’s not fair. We're all held-backs. We're all not freshmen. So I'm 14, and everybody else is 14."
League rules state a player has to be no older than 14 as of August 31. The league acknowledged that all of the players qualify and asked parents to provide birth certificates as proof.
"I did notice a couple of discrepancies from previous registrations to current registrations, not insinuating anything, but they're typing it in on a computer, it's easy to fat-finger a number or something," Turlington explained.
Turlington promised that Pine View’s season is not over, and that the league is looking to line up opponents of comparable size from other leagues from areas such as Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.
