NI FORFEITS

TO KANN. FRIDAY NITE.THE REASON FROM SOMEONE CLOSE TO THE TEAM WAS AN ASST. COACH FROM NI HIT A PLAYER FROM LN.ANYBODY KNOW ANYTHING.

 

hmmmmmmmm...

like to hear some more details as well? This is unfortunate for the kids at North... Great bunch of young ens from what I know...

 

my 2 cents.......

It appears that Lake Norman is gaining a reputation around the league as a dirty team. When we went to their place to play them there were several instances when some of their defenders took cheap shots at our players well after the whistle. I was thinking that it was because of the cross town rivalry thing but evidently they've continued their tactics elsewhere. It is a direct reflection on the coaching staff, they do have the power to say what goes and what does'nt. It is unfortunate that NI got caught up in the moment and now they're paying the price. I wonder what price the Lake Norman team is paying.

 

NI Forfeit

No Coach from NI hit a player from Lake Norman. A parent from Lake Norman hit and Kicked one of North Iredell's Asst. Coaches.

 

Re: NI Forfeit

parents again...........................figures!

 

is this the story on WBTV3 @ 11.......................heard a short bit on a forfeited hs game?

Guess i will watch @ 11

 

Salisbury Post today:
North Iredell forfeits Friday's game to A.L. Brown
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Steve Hanf, Salisbury Post





Friday night's A.L. Brown-North Iredell game, scheduled to be the regular-season finale for both squads, will go into the books as a 2-0 Wonder win via forfeit. NorthIredell's varsity football team was left with just eight players due to suspensions from a fight in last week's Lake Norman contest.

"It's probably the worst week in the 29 years I've been teaching school,"said North Iredell Athletics Director Bill Howell. "I was embarrassed and upset."

The Raiders lost 18 players based on Tuesday's decision by Iredell-Statesville Schools and North officials. Five Lake Norman players were suspended, meaning the Wildcats will still play their finale as scheduled against Northwest Cabarrus.

"I think we did as much as we could do,"said Howell, a 1975 Catawba College graduate. "North Iredell took the biggest hit of the two schools, and it also hurts Kannapolis Brown. A week off -- no coach wants that before beginning playoff competition."

The forfeit improves the Wonders' record to 8-3 overall and 6-1 in the 3A North Piedmont Conference. A.L. Brown clinched a share of its third straight NPC crown and sixth in seven years, and will earn the league's top seed for the playoffs if Statesville beats Mooresville on Friday.

All three teams own one league loss apiece, with Mooresville's victory over the Wonders serving as the tie-breaker should the Blue Devils win Friday night.

A.L. Brown head coach Ron Massey said he planned to take his wife out on the rare off night -- the same response he gave two years ago when a court battle postponed the opening round of the 3A playoffs by one week. But while joking about Halloween festivities, Massey knows where his players truly want to be.

"There's disappointment. Kids work hard to have an opportunity to play football,"Massey said." We demand a lot of them in the offseason and if they're lucky they get 12-13 games to participate in. If you're a senior, your games are running out. With the opportunity not to compete, they're the ones getting cheated."

The decision not to play stemmed from a fight in the closing seconds of Friday's 28-14 Lake Norman victory. At the end of an interception return, Howell said some of the Lake Norman players pulled a Raider off the pile and matters escalated from there.

Howell said fans from both sidelines left the bleachers and reached the edge of the field, and players from both teams raced off the benches. As a rule, the N.C. High School Athletic Association levies a $1,000 fine against schools when players leave the bench to participate in fights.

As defensive coordinator, Howell said some of his players left the sidelines simply for the change of possession. But it wasn't easy discerning which players left for that purpose and who intended to "mix it up."

"Because they came off the bench, we followed the letter of the rule,"Howell said.

Rick Strunk, associate athletic director of the NCHSAA, said the mass suspensions stemming from Friday's game were unusual. While the state organization deals with one or two bench-clearing incidents each year, the game officials always eject the participants, making the suspension process more clear-cut.

No ejections were handed out Friday night, however.

"That's a complication in this matter and it's why the school system has taken the action itself," Strunk said. "They have handled it in a very professional matter and certainly agonized over the consequences."

Perhaps the biggest hit of all? The forfeited game was scheduled at North Iredell on the last day of the season.

"It was supposed to be our Senior Night,"Howell said. "I'm sure there will be some hard feelings by our parents, and rightly so."

After school system and North Iredell officials reviewed videotapes of the melee and decided on the suspensions, Howell and head coach Bobby Morrison met with the team. Each player received a letter and the system's press release about the punishment.

While the stadium lights won't shine in Raider Ravine this week, North Iredell's season may be extended. North finishes 1-6 in the NPC, but owns four wins overall and qualifies for the playoffs.

"If we're fortunate enough be in the playoffs, it will give the kids a chance to redeem themselves," said Morrison. "Not by winning, but by showing up to play football the way it should be played.

"I believe that once everything quiets down and we get back to concentrating on football, I think everything will be OK,"Morrison added quietly, the disappointment obvious in his voice. "But we're going to have to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk before we do anything."

The NCHSAA was awaiting final written reports from both North Iredell and Lake Norman this morning, along with video of the event. Executive Director Dick Knox will make the final call in the matter, but Strunk said further punishment is unlikely.

Knox was out of the office at basketball officiating clinics until Thursday.

"There is further action we could take, but from what I've heard they've gone above what they had to do,"Strunk said. "They're trying to do the right thing and send the appropriate message. Member schools and the state association have been trying to work hard to make sure we have proper environments at our games. One of those got out of hand."

North Iredell and A.L. Brown's varsity teams will return to the practice fields today, and the junior varsity game will be played as planned Thursday night -- only with JV players, Howell stressed, despite message-board traffic to the contrary.

Even after the fight, Howell said, some fans stoked the competitive fires to such a degree as to suggest that coaches from each school would move down varsity players to gain an edge in the JV game.

"That's our society today, and it doesn't matter what level,"Howell said. "Fans have taken it to a point where they've lost the idea of what wholesome athletics is all about. It's a shame, because I think high school athletics are the last pure amateur sport."

 

North Iredell will cancel last game because of brawl
By Bill Kiser, MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
Posted in the Winston-Salem Joutnal, 10/30/03

Officials with the Iredell-Statesville Schools have suspended football players from North Iredell and Lake Norman high schools for their parts in a bench-clearing brawl at the end of a game between the schools last Friday.

A school-system news release issued Tuesday said that the suspended players - five from Lake Norman and an undisclosed number, believed to be more than 15, from North Iredell - wouldn't be allowed to play in Friday's final regular-season games.

"The schools and the school system do not condone and will not tolerate such behavior," the release said.

As a result of the suspensions, officials at North Iredell canceled Friday's home game against Kannapolis Brown, giving Brown a 2-0 victory by forfeit.

"We collaborated on this ... and based our decisions on what was in the game films, and what we personally witnessed," said Principal Dreisa Sherrill of North Iredell, who was at the game. "We had a significant number of players suspended ... and it was enough that we felt that we should call the game for Friday night."

Lake Norman, which beat North Iredell 28-14, will play its finale Friday against Northwest Cabarrus.

The release said that "school officials are also looking into personnel-related issues," meaning that the conduct of school personnel in last week's incident is also being reviewed, according to Terry Holliday, the ISS superintendent.

"We're looking at any inappropriate behavior by any school personnel," Holliday said. "We're getting written statements from students, parents, other coaches.... Hopefully, we'll have this cleared up in a couple weeks and take any action that we need to take."

The fight started with less than 30 seconds left, after Lake Norman's Andrew Mauren intercepted a pass and was tackled by at least five North players on the return. Videotapes show that as the players were getting up after the tackle, lineman David Coleman of North shoved defensive back Nick Curcio of Lake Norman. That led to more shoving between players, and ultimately, other players came off the benches.

An investigative panel made up of the schools' principals and athletics directors and the school-system AD watched videotapes of the fight and decided to suspend all players involved.

Lake Norman and North Iredell will be fined $1,000 each by the NCHSAA because players left their benches to participate in a fight. North Iredell also could face a "forfeitfure fee" of as much as $2,000 from the North Piedmont 3-A for canceling its game against Kannapolis Brown.

 

It suprises me that Lake Norman has this reputation. Coach Sherrill is a touch coach who is hard on his players, but I never, ever saw him advocate any type of violence. I'd like to hear what he had to say about this.