MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
So, who framed Sam Sentinel?
The answer to that would be no one. The Fort Hill Sentinels unknowingly had an ineligible player on the roster and have forfeited the five wins the player played in this season.
So then, who anonymously blew the whistle on Fort Hill the day before the Homecoming Game with Allegany? The answer to that for everyone should be, “Who cares?”
What difference does it make? It’s all very unfortunate, but it is what it is, and though it’s going to cost Fort Hill a lot of money in playoff expenses it wasn’t planning on spending, it’s time to move on, as the Sentinels have a job to do and still have everything they want to accomplish ahead of them.
It’s unfortunate, because a youngster was put in the middle of a circumstance that adversely affected him and a lot of other people, namely his former teammates, who, based on their actions before and during their 39-0 win over Allegany on Saturday, still consider him to be their teammate.
That’s good, because the most important issue at hand is to help the young man get resituated in school so that he can get on with his education and the rest of his life. Kudos to the Fort Hill players for rallying around their friend and their teammate.
As for the Sentinels and their quest to win their fourth straight Maryland 1A state football championship, the school appealed the decision to the MPSSAA, but, according to the Cumberland Times-News, “there was not enough time to hear it” on Monday before the playoffs brackets were finalized.
Fort Hill has 30 days to appeal the forfeited regular-season wins, but the appeal will have no effect on the playoffs.
Thus, the Sentinels are now the No. 6 seed in the 1A West Region and will be the visitor when they play arch-rival Allegany, the No. 3 seed, for the second week in a row, Friday, 7 p.m., at Greenway Avenue Stadium. No. 4 Northern will host No. 5 Southern, while the Fort Hill-Alco winner will play next at No. 2 Clear Spring, with the Northern-Southern winner heading to Frostburg to play No. 1 seed Mountain Ridge.
At this point it’s all cut and dried, which many of us believe is a good thing given the circumstances, yet there are others of us who just won’t give it a rest in not only rounding up, but accusing the so-called usual suspects on a social media vehicle that I happily no longer use.
Clearly, someone did make the anonymous call to Fort Hill, which Fort Hill then forwarded to the Allegany County Board of Education, which conducted an investigation and immediately cleared the Fort Hill administration and football coaching staff of wrongdoing and lack of diligence, which is important.
As for who the anonymous caller was, it doesn’t matter. And while the timing of the call – the day before the biggest game of the season – clearly indicates the intention of the anonymous caller was to stick it to Fort Hill since the player in question played in seven previous games, those intent on accusing anyone and everyone in our area of making the call, should stop wasting their time doing cheap detective work and just be grateful that whoever wanted to stick Fort Hill clearly has no idea how to stick.
Unless this righteous caller had been informed of the circumstance just before making the call (which, no way, is what happened), said caller has absolutely no clue how things work; for if he or she really wanted to put the screws to the Sentinels, the call would have been made two weeks later as the Sentinels, who would have been top seeded, would be well into the middle of the playoffs and likely would have had their season and their goal of a fourth straight state title eliminated on the spot.
Yet because the anonymous caller seemingly wanted to throw a monkey wrench into Homecoming (which the late, great Steve Parsons used to call Idiot Week because of the, you guessed it, grown-ups), the Sentinels’ season is far from being ruined.
Just call it some added inconvenience and possibly more expenses that had been previously planned, because all Fort Hill and the other teams in the West Region have to do is take care of their business and do their absolute best, because the playoffs will go on with all principal parties involved.
Who cares who made the call? If it was anyone of any importance, or with any self-esteem, they would have given their name.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT