In 1923,Big Sandy won their first football district championship and were highly favored to win state. Several days later, the title was stripped from them and their trip to the state championship tournament was cancelled over a technicality. The team that was awarded the district title went on to state despite having fielded a 21-year old player in the tournament.
For context, The Mountaineer pointed out that the Great Falls team fielded a 22-year old "high school student" against Big Sandy the same season. Both of these rule violations are cited as further evidence that "the deck was stacked" against our smaller town team and in favor of larger schools. It appears as though the board did not act on one of these teams, though I haven't found anything on whether Great Falls faced repercussions for their ineligible player.
The more I researched the crazy series of events that had cost Big Sandy a potential state championship win, the more wild the story became. The whole research project began with a basketball program I found while doing renovations on my home, which was built sometime around 1900. Last week, I wrote about the district championship win in 1924 which I learned about while researching the program. If you missed it, I highly recommend checking it out at http://www.bigsandymountaineer.com. In the process of reading up on our basketball win, I encountered repeated references to Big Sandy being cheated out of their football win, which prompted this bit of research.
The story starts with Big Sandy defeating Harlowton 7 to 6 for the district title. The day after the win, the principal of Harlowton, Mr. Lewis, filed 9 protests against the Big Sandy team. The Mountaineer describes it as the act of a sore loser. 8 of those protests were dismissed immediately, including the claim that a 17-year old player that Big Sandy fielded was over the age of 21. The only objection that stuck was made against a freshman, Sig Moe.
Sig had transferred to our school from Missoula because his father/guardian's job had changed. Sig's dad had taken a job as a field worker for the Montana Wheat Growers Association and was working throughout the northern part of the state. Sig moved in with his uncle to our little town. His father stayed in the area when he was able, but did not file anything to change his official residence. Sig attended our school and lived in town. The complaint against his eligibility was based on a rule that players who moved schools, except in instances where they moved with their guardian due to change of vocation. Essentially, star athletes were not allowed to play in their sport for one semester following their changing schools, unless their official residence changed because their guardian moved. According to The Mountaineer, the rule existed specifically to prevent schools from
enticing star athletes to transfer in exchange for special favors. Sig was ruled ineligible to play football because he had transferred from Missoula without his official residency changing or waiting the required semester before starting. The State Board of Control of the High School Athletic Association ruled him ineligible based on that rule and ruled that the team retroactively forfeited all of the games Sig played in. This gave the district championship to Harlowton.
On it's face, this looks unfortunate but potentially legitimate. Once you scratch beneath the surface though, the details reveal a great deal more was going on. What makes the whole thing worse is the fact that the irregularities take place in relation to Harlowton and the state board separately. It's difficult to know where to begin, so I will approach it in chronological order for the sake of clarity.
According to the Havre Paper, Big Sandy delivered a required eligibility roster to the coach for Harlowton a week in advance of the game. In contrast, Principal Lewis of Harlowton submitted his eligibility roster minutes before the start of the district championship game. The Mountaineer argued that the fact that Harlowton's protests were delivered the following day suggests that they had already identified the potential protests, but held them back until after they lost the game as a means of taking a second crack at the win through raising complaints that they could have brought up in advance of the game. At the hearing to rule on Sig's eligibility, the eligibility of a 21-year old player for Harlowton was also discussed. The player testified that he did not become 21 until the day after the championship game. No birth records were available at the time of the hearing, so the board ruled him eligible. Later, The Mountaineer discovered that the player had lied and was playing as a 21-year old in violation of the rules. The Mountaineer describes Principal Lewis' actions as those of a poor loser, but does make it a point of mentioning that it was a "notorious fact" that Harlowton gamblers "had bet at least $3,000 on the game." The article repeats the claim several times and suggests that the principal may have acted as he did in an effort to appease those people. $3,000 in 1923 is the equivalent of over $52,000 today. Though they never overtly make the claim, the implied connection does seem shady.
The second layer of shady dealings turns up in relation to the Board of Control of the State High School Athletic Association. The November 22, 1923 issue of The Mountaineer includes an extensive write up of the proceedings. Big Sandy argued that the complaint was a technicality, because Sig lived in Big Sandy after his father had moved away from Missoula where Sig had played basketball for the school. They asserted that because he had moved when his guardian changed jobs, he lived with family in Big Sandy, and attended school there, the fact that he hadn't changed official residence was really nothing more than a technical violation of rule. The board opted to set aside the issue of technicality because they claimed that Sig playing was a violation of the spirit and letter of the rule. It is important to note that the rule existed to prevent star athletes from being bribed to change schools. The board ruled Sig an ineligible player and vacated all of their wins. The statement they issued was signed by A.K. Ketchum, who was the secretary of the board. The Mountaineer explained that Ketchum was also the one who "railroaded" the issue through the board review process. This is the same meeting where a 21-year old player for the opposing team "perjured" himself regarding his age and birthday when his eligibility was reviewed.
The Mountaineer raised several objections to the ruling. A few of them included the fact that Sig had played basketball, not football, for Missoula. They argued that this means he could not have been a football star being recruited as a sort of ringer in the High School sports arena. Further, they pointed out that the only real violation relates to fact that his father didn't change his official residence, which makes claims that they violated the spirit of the rule specious. The repeated, furious claim raised against the board related to its hypocrisy and uneven application of the rules.
Mr. Ketchum, who signed the statement and championed the protest was also the principal of the high school in Missoula, where Sig Moe attended and played basketball the previous school year. The same eligibility complaint was raised regarding Sig during his season with Missoula. That time, the board also ruled that he was ineligible to play, but did not vacate the previous victories won while he was on the court. The Mountaineer argued that this was a biased application of the rules favoring a larger school district.
Another wrinkle in the issue arises because Principal Ketchum signed off on Sig's eligibility to play basketball at the time. At the time, all player eligibility was signed off on by the principal of the school in question. When Ketchum was questioned about signing off on Sig in the hearing regarding Big Sandy's District Championship he denied doing so, despite the fact that having done so was public record.
The paper also points out that Principal Ketchum, or some other official in the Missoula School, got Sig's father to take guardianship of the boy at that time. It is implied that this was done to establish the boy's residency with his father in Missoula.
A final major point of strangeness regarding Ketchum's role in the matter relates to the lawyer who argued against Sig's eligibility before the board. According to The Mountaineer, the individual was not associated with Harlowton, who filed the complaint. Instead, he was a member of the school board in Missoula. That means he worked with Ketchum, who "railroaded" the issue through the process.
Ultimately, the mountain of irregularities and shady deals scaled by The Big Sandy Mountaineer in 1923-1924 only shed light on how our team was "cheated" out of the district championship. It did nothing to bring about justice. Though the 1923 team was favored to win the state championship, they never got a chance to find out if they could. This is certainly the reason why the town was so excited about the basketball championship in the spring of 1924. It also makes it clear that our 2022 state championship was long overdue, landing 99 years after our team was cheated out of its first trip to state.
