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Bristol transfer files suit to play basketball at Warren JFK
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Isaac Carrino, a Bristolville teen who relocated with his family to Trumbull County from North Carolina a year ago, has filed suit against the Ohio High School Athletic Association seeking eligibility to play sports at John F. Kennedy High School.
He is a sophomore at JFK this year and earned a position on the Eagles’ varsity basketball team, but has not been able to play because the OHSAA ruled him ineligible to play for one year.
A hearing in the lawsuit took place in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on Friday before Judge John M. Stuard, who said he would try to make a decision in the case as soon as possible.
Carrino and his parents, James and Debra Carrino, and brother, Jacob, moved to Bristolville in July 2011 after the family learned of issues involving Isaac’s paternal grandmother that required the family’s assistance, the lawsuit said.
The boys spent last school year in the Bristol Local School District.
But the family decided to move Isaac to Warren JFK for the 2012-13 school year because it “presented a better option for Isaac’s continued education in terms of academics, spirituality and social enrichment,” the lawsuit said. Among those opportunities was honors classes.
But on Nov. 5, the OHSAA ruled Carrino ineligible to play sports at Kennedy for one year. Carrino appealed the decision, and the OHSAA denied the appeal Nov. 19.
In a letter to JFK High School, the OHSAA said Carrino did not meet the requirements for a transfer exemption because Bristol administrators indicated that Carrino’s transfer to Kennedy was “clearly motivated by athletics.”
The bylaws of the Ohio Athletic Association say that an exemption from sitting out a year can be obtained if the change of schools “is not athletically motivated.”
The lawsuit says the OHSAA was “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and mistaken in this matter” and asks the court overturn the decision.
Last December, Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court approved a temporary injunction that allowed Arthur Cook to play basketball at Warren G. Harding High School after he and his father moved to Warren from Cleveland.
The judge followed that with a permanent injunction in January, saying the OHSAA was arbitrary in ruling Cook ineligible to play sports at Harding.
The OHSAA relied mostly on information from a principal in Cleveland regarding messages Cook had written on his Twitter account regarding his possible move from his former high school.
In that case, Judge McKay said the OHSAA was arbitrary when it relied “entirely ... on the intent of Arthur Cook” in deciding that he and his parents were trying to circumvent OHSAA rules by transferring to Harding.