Judge Overturns OHSAA, Allows Team Back in Tourney

Six days after Dunbar's boys basketball team was kicked out of the state tournament, a local judge put them back in Tuesday, overturning a ruling from the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

OHSAA officials could not immediately be reached for comment on whether they would appeal. Barring that, Dunbar is now scheduled to play Middletown Fenwick in a sectional final game at 9:30 p.m. today.

Last week, the OHSAA had disqualified Dunbar from the tournament, saying the team used an ineligible player in its Feb. 23 tournament opener. Another Dayton public school, Thurgood Marshall, was put in Dunbar's place.

But Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Krumholtz overruled that move by OHSAA, granting a preliminary injunction.

"We're very happy for the students at Dunbar High School, that they're going to be able to be able to play in the tournament game. We feel that the students deserve that opportunity, and we're happy with the judgment," said acting DPS Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli. "We want to make sure we send a strong message about accountability and responsibility."

She would not comment on whether district AD Mark Baker or other staff had been disciplined in this case.

'John Doe' question

For all the drama over whether OHSAA is treating Dunbar High School with "spite and ill will" as the school board claims, or whether Dunbar leaders showed "abject disregard" for their responsibilities to act, as OHSAA claimed, the case largely came down to one question.

Was one particular Dunbar basketball player - a juvenile this news outlet is naming only as "John Doe" - among the players who left the team bench area during a Jan. 10 junior varsity game fight against Thurgood Marshall?

Leaving the team bench during a fight is a violation of national and OHSAA rules, triggering a two-game suspension. The player would be ineligible until he has served the two-game suspension.

Both sides agreed that the player in question participated in that Jan. 10 JV game, never served a suspension tied to that game, and later appeared in Dunbar's postseason tournament opener. If "John Doe" played in a tournament game while ineligible, Dunbar would be removed from the tournament, as they were last week.

But Brian Wildermuth, the attorney representing Dayton's school board, argued that OHSAA conducted a "shoddy" investigation, pointing out that no one could identify the particular player as being on the bench in the game video.

Wildermuth also established that Dunbar's score-book lists 13 players for that JV game, including John Doe, meaning eight players would be on the bench. But OHSAA's ruling punishing the district cites seven Dunbar players "whom we were able to identify ... after review of the videotape."

Dunbar varsity coach Chuck Taylor testified that when he was coming out of the locker room to deal with the in-progress melee on the court, the player in question passed him in the hallway to the locker room, going in the other direction - raising the question of whether he had already left the bench before the fight happened.

Dunbar JV coach Donnovan Brown testified that he didn't know whether the player was on the bench at the time the fight began.

OHSAA officials testified that game video shows all players on Dunbar's bench leaving the bench when the fight occurred. It is clear to anyone watching the video that some of those bench players ran into the fight and actively participated in it.

Judge sees 7 on bench

Krumholtz ruled that the OHSAA had, in fact, made a mistake. He wrote that "Upon a thorough review of the video from the January 10, 2018 brawl, the Court counts five players on the court, and at most, seven on the Dunbar bench at the time the fight broke out."

But during the hearing, neither side stopped the video and advanced it frame-by-frame to do a headcount of the number of players coming off the bench to see if it was clear whether that number was seven or eight.

Krumholtz writes that Taylor, who is a Dayton Municipal Court bailiff, provided an "unrefuted explanation" for the whereabouts of the key 13th player, John Doe. Taylor testified that he saw John Doe in the locker room hallway as he went out to the ongoing melee.

"Coach Taylor can be seen in the videos exiting the Dunbar locker room area," Krumholtz wrote. "The Court did not observe any player head into the locker room from the beginning of the video, which starts shortly before the commission of the 'hard foul,' until Coach Taylor appears. Thus, as Coach Taylor testified, John Doe was already in the locker room hallway before the fight broke out."

Contact this reporter at 937-225-2278 or email [email protected] News Center 7's Caroline Reinwald contributed to this report.

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