Ray Carter, Director,

Independent Journalism Center

Thismonth, the15-member board of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA), which oversees K-12 school competitions, voted to bar four teenagers from playing basketball for Glencoe after the boys used the open-transfer process to enroll in Glencoe schools.

The boys’ families have sued the OSSAA, alleging the association acted arbitrarily and in defiance of the factual record.

Of the 15 OSSAA board members, 13 are either superintendents or assistant superintendents for various districts, while the other members are an athletic director and an executive director of secondary education at two other state schools.

Public records indicate that four of the 15 board members represent school districts that could potentially face Glencoe, particularly in a playoff situation. Those four administrators represent the Okeene, Binger- Oney, Davenport, and Rock Creek districts, which are Class A schools along with Glencoe.

The vote to deny the Glencoe transfers’ eligibility was 12-0 because the OSSAA chairman does not typically vote, one board member was absent, and another chose not to vote. As a result, the four individuals representing Class A schools comprised onefourth of the votes cast and half the number required to achieve a majority.

The fact that the boys’ eligibility could be decided by, or impacted by, the views of officials whose schools might benefit competitively from a denial of eligibility does not set well with critics.

“There’s something seriously wrong when four of the 12 OSSAA board members who voted to ban Glencoe represent Class A schools, the very schools that compete directly with Glencoe,” said state Rep. Ty Burns, a Pawnee Republican who is a former coach. “That’s not governance; that’s a conflict of interest dressed up as oversight.”

The four teenage boys sought to transfer to Glencoe High School, saying they wanted to play basketball with their longtime friend, Maddox Schubert.

However, because Schubert’s father is Garrett Schubert, the new basketball coach at Glencoe, the OSSAA board alleged that Glencoe violated an OSSAA rule that loosely pertains to the alleged recruiting of athletes by coaches.

Garrett Schubert, Glencoe school officials, and the four youths have all denied wrongdoing.

On Aug. 13, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association’s Board of Directors voted 12-0 to uphold the association’s ruling that the four boys will be ineligible to play basketball at Glencoe for the 2025 season.

The boys’ families filed a lawsuit on Aug. 14.

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Payne County, asks for immediate injunctive relief to reinstate the players’ eligibility and prevent further harm to their athletic and educational opportunities.

The plaintiffs’ petition alleges that OSSAA’s purported reasons for denying the four boys’ eligibility shifted repeatedly over the course of the review process.

At one point, the OSSAA claimed the boys were ineligible to play for Glencoe because they attended a sports camp where Coach Schubert was a leader. But the petition notes that one of the students “didn’t even attend the team camps this summer.”

“That’s not governance; that’s a conflict of interest dressed up as oversight.”

—State Rep. Ty Burns (R-Pawnee) The plaintiffs say OSSAA informed them the boys should not have attended the Glencoe camp