Kahlil McKenzie, ranked as high as second in the nation among high school football recruits, has been ruled ineligible for the current season, despite having broken no laws or done anything wrong at all, really.


It has something to do with changing schools for the wrong reasons. I'm not Ricky Recruiting or anything, so I'll let Max Preps explain:

At the time of the transfer, NCS commissioner Gil Lemmon, said that students transferring from private to any public school — Charter or otherwise — still have to meet exhaustive and strict rules. The most important is that a transfer cannot be "athletically motivated." If deemed so, then no matter if there's a change of residency or not, Lemmon can rule a student athletically ineligible for up to a school year. Evidently, Lemmon decided the transfer was athletically motivated, thus McKenzie was ruled ineligible on Thursday for the season. When contacted Thursday, Lemmon said he could not address specific eligibility cases, and directed questions to Clayton Valley.


I'm sure the rule exists for a good reason, but this is a young man whose future is likely as a football player, and we're talking about not letting him play football for a year. That's not a small thing. No one ever tells future chemists that the don't get to be in a lab for a year.

Hopefully, there's an appeals process, he can play somewhere else, or a more sensible decision can be made. Also, the young man's father is Oakland Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie, so hopefully, he has someone else he can ask for help.

[ 247 Sports]