A state judge will hear a request at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow by Kahuku High School football players and parents to allow the team to participate in the state high school championships, which begin Friday.

The hearing was scheduled this afternoon by Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto after a lawsuit was filed this morning by Kahuku football players Evan and Sterling Moe and Jamal Napeahi and their parents.

The players and parents are seeking a court order that would allow the team to participate in the playoffs.

Lawyers for the Oahu Interscholastic  Association and the Hawaii High School Athletic Association said this afternoon they will oppose the request for the court order.

Attorney Lyle Hosada, representing the OIA, said it is unfortunate and sad that Kahuku is not in the playoffs, but “we have to apply the rules uniformly and equally to all.”

Attorney Joseph Stewart, representing the Hawaii High School Athletic Association, said granting the court order would be “catastrophic” in terms of extending the state playoffs and rescheduling games.

The OIA ruled last week that Kahuku could not participate in the playoffs because of an ineligible player violation.
The lawsuit said the violation involved a player who was declared ineligible as a “fifth-year senior.”

The suit said the player was briefly in the ninth grade at Kahuku, then transferred back to the eighth grade. The next year, he re-enrolled at the school, the suit said.

The player was on the team for the first time this year.

The suit blamed the mix-up over his “fifth year” status on “an inadvertent clerical error.”

It said the error “resulted in an arguably incorrect eligibility determination regarding a minor player without any apparent fault or responsibility or flaunting of any rules … by any of the Kahuku players, coaches, parents or community supporters of the football team.”

 OIA’s decision prevented Kahuku from participating in the OIA title game Friday night against Mililani High School.

 The suit said the OIA refused to hear “mitigating factors and circumstances” from the players and parents.  The refusal, the suit said, violated their rights to due process under the state and federal constitutions.

In the request for a restraining order that would allow the school to participate in the playoffs, the attorneys for the players and parents said the OIA has handled similar incidents with “far less draconian” measures rather than penalizing the “entire team comprised of entirely innocent student athletes.”

The request said the OIA rules penalize teams that “used an ineligible player,” but it’s not clear whether the OIA determined in which games the ineligible player was “used.”

Under its own rules, the OIA should have allowed Kahuku to play Mililani without the ineligible player Friday and compete in state playoffs, then decide whether they should forfeit any championships.

Della Au Belatti, an attorney with the law firm of Eric Seitz, said this morning they were still seeking a “flexible solution” that would avoid litigation, but allow Kahuku to participate in the state championship playoffs.

The Attorney General’s office said it has no comment at this time. OIA executive secretary Dwight Toyama and executive director Christopher Chun of the HHSAA referred questions this morning to their lawyers.

“It’s on the next level,” Toyama said.

In its statement issued last week, the OIA said Kahuku High School principal Donna Lindsey received an anonymous call last week that one of team’s players was ineligible.

She immediately notified the OIA and conducted a “thorough and complete investigation,” the OIA said.

Lindsey reported her findings Thursday night to a rules committee consisting of principals from six OIA schools. The committee unanimously found that there was a violation and Kahuku must forfeit “all games in which it used an ineligible player.”

Kahuku appealed, asking for a review by all OIA members, the OIA said.

At an emergency meeting Friday, the OIA upheld the rules committee’s findings, the OIA said.

The OIA said “the rules are the rules” and “the rules must be applied evenly and equally to all.”

“It is regrettable that this was discovered this late in the season,” the OIA said.