Following the various interpretations of events, opinions about the rules, and now even personal attacks on UPA volunteers, it is time to set the record straight on the issue of UT-Chattanooga Women’s team forfeiting a game at Blue Ridge Sectionals and being disqualified from the 2006 College Series.

The UPA administration, including the Atlantic Coast Regional Coordinator, National College Director, and Championship Director spent hours last week gathering information from people at the event including the sectional coordinator and representatives from both the UTC and Richmond teams.  The decision to disqualify UTC was made after considering statements from all of these individuals, taking into account any potential for bias or perception of bias on the part of individuals including UPA staff, and considering the UPA rules for Series competition and past precedent for decisions made in similar situations.

First, the facts.  UTC was scheduled to play a Round 3 game against Richmond. The loser would place 4th and the winner would play the loser of the finals for 2nd.  The final was also taking place in Round 3.  James Madison, the team that the sectional coordinator was playing for was also playing in Round 3 for 5th place.   The UTC team decided that they would not or could not play their scheduled game against Richmond.  The UTC team informed the Richmond team representative that they were going to forfeit the game.  At a later time (not at the time of the forfeit), the sectional coordinator came to collect the score from the game and the Richmond team told her that UTC had forfeited the game and had left the field.  UPA HQ was informed of the forfeit on Monday by the UTC team who had heard that they might be disqualified for forfeiting that game.  The UTC team admitted to having not known about the forfeit rule and admitted that they did not seek or get permission from the sectional coordinator to forfeit the game. The sectional coordinator confirmed that the team had forfeited and had not sought or received permission from her to forfeit.  The UPA administration spent several days looking into the facts of this case. Based on the information gathered, on the very clearly stated rule in the Series Guidelines, and on precedent, the team was disqualified from the 2006 College Series.

Second, the rules.  The Forfeit Rule (http://www.upa.org/college/2006_college/series_guidelines#forfeit) is very clear, and as part of the guidelines for the Series, is the responsibility of each team to know.  The rule is in place because for many years forfeited games at Series qualifying events adversely affected competition, primarily by giving teams “byes” prior to playing future rounds.  These byes gave teams an advantage that was specifically not part of approved event formats (which have been developed and scrutinized in order to provide as fair an environment for competition as possible).  Advantages gained could be for the “losing” team that forfeited the game, the “winning” team, or both depending on the circumstances. The penalty for forfeiting a game at a Series event was set so that it would be harsh enough to prevent a team from doing it.   

The forfeit rule also contains a caveat whereby the UPA event coordinator may allow a forfeit in “situations that might warrant an exception being made, provided it does not affect the fairness or integrity of the competition.”  This particular case may or may not have been such a situation.  Certainly it can be argued that the fairness of the competition would/could have been affected.  Richmond, the winner of the UTC-Richmond game, was able to rest a round while their future opponent played a game.   Both teams should have been playing during the round, prior to the game for 2nd place. And in this particular case, the team that was resting won that game to take 2nd place.  It is clearly possible that the forfeit affected the competition.  However, player safety is an issue that a coordinator can consider when determining exceptions to the forfeit rule.  Given the facts, this particular case would perhaps have been difficult for a UPA official to make a decision on.  The sectional coordinator may have wanted to call her regional coordinator, national director, or HQ to get some advice. However, the sectional coordinator never received a request to forfeit from UTC, a discussion was never initiated by UTC, and the sectional coordinator did not find out about the forfeit until another team, Richmond, told her late into the 3rd Round.  This information has been verified by the Richmond team as well as the sectional coordinator.  The UTC team has also confirmed repeatedly that a) they did not know about the rule, and b) they did not tell the sectional coordinator that they intended to or had forfeited their game.  Because the process was never started by the team, the SC never had the chance to look at the situation or ask anybody what should have happened with the player safety issues.  The team made a decision without consulting a tournament official and bears the responsibility of that decision.  

Finally, some good people have gone over the line by calling into question the integrity of a UPA volunteer who put a lot of time and effort into running her sectional event.  Jerilyn Monts has received nothing but praise from her regional coordinator for how she communicated with teams, communicated with her, and planned the Blue Ridge Women’s Sectionals.  In late January, Jerilyn sent out an email to all the teams reminding them of the registration requirements and Series rules. Included was the following quote directed to teams in her section. “Please also, read the series guidelines. It’s got all the roster info and the sectionals/regionals/nationals rules and all that good stuff. It is in all of your best interest to read them, and understand how the Series works.  If you have any questions email me, not that I’ve got all the answers, but I can find the people who do.  Here’s the link for the guidelines: www.upa.org/college/2006_college/series_guidelines.”  As a result of this kind of communication, the Blue Ridge Section had 100% of its women’s teams registered on time (8 of 8).  

All series coordinators are provided an online coordinator packet with a plethora of information about how to run their part of the Series.  They are also given a quiz to test their knowledge of those duties, and are sent constant reminders from other Series staff about deadlines, Series rules, and updated information for themselves and their teams.  Part of the sectional coordinator’s job is to help teams with things like competition rules and registration requirements. It is not their job to hold the teams’ hands throughout the entire process up to and through their tournament.  Despite the best efforts of coordinators, some teams don’t register on time, other teams don’t read the eligibility rules, and still others don’t read or follow the competition rules.  When coordinators can help out, they do. But unless coordinators are specifically providing bad information, it is the teams’ responsibility to know and follow instructions for participating in Series events.  In this situation bad information that contradicted the rules was never sent out by Jerilyn.

Finally, while Jerilyn’s planning and running of the event is irrelevant to the decision about UTC’s forfeit and subsequent disqualification, since it’s been brought up, here is some additional information.  This comes from the AC Women’s Regional Coordinator who worked directly with Jerilyn on planning the event and dealing with last minute problems.  Potential weather issues had the fields/schedule up in the air until late afternoon Friday.  On Thursday night, with the loss of fields imminent, Jerilyn was considering postponing the event specifically b/c UTC had a very long drive and she didn’t want them to have to drive up for a cancelled event.  That is the reason the schedule was not set further in advance. The fields were up in the air til late Friday, when permission was finally received from Richmond to use the fields regardless of weather.  Jerilyn had gotten two phone numbers from each team to use in case of emergencies. She called the UTC numbers and left messages about the schedule changes. She even went so far as to call the UT-Knoxville girls in case they were staying near UTC b/c she was afraid UTC wasn’t receiving the messages.  As has also been noted by detractors, Jerilyn was also playing at the event.  However, this has not yet been portrayed as a positive aspect of her coordinating, when in fact it is highly commendable. To be willing and able to organize a sectional event while participating on one of the teams is no small task. To do it with the level of effort and communication that Jerilyn clearly exhibited is exactly the kind of thing that makes a quality coordinator and she should be receiving thanks for her efforts rather than complaints.

It is understandable that the UTC team and their supporters would be upset by the disqualification. It is unfortunate and there is certainly no pleasure taken in disqualifying players or teams.  However, it is important the rules are enforced consistently.  If people have a problem with a particular rule, UPA staff are available to discuss why the rules are in place and how to go about changing them if needed.  But exceptions granted when rules have been clearly violated hurt the legitimacy of the rules themselves and the competition.  It is especially unfortunate in this case that people would take a situation like this and turn it into a series of personal attacks on a good volunteer who did her job well.  This despite the UTC team being admittedly, directly responsible for not knowing and following a very clear Series rule.  The protocols are in place to deal with the player safety issues that allegedly arose with the UTC team, but because they did not tell an administrator about their situation these protocols were not set in motion.

The UPA staff hopes that the UTC and other teams will have learned from this unfortunate experience, that we will have more coordinators like Jerilyn who put time and effort into the position, and that perhaps a few apologies will make their way to her for any personal attacks on her character.

Will Deaver
UPA Championship Director
Joshua Greenough
National College Director
Lindsay Hack
Atlantic Coast Women’s Regional Coordinator