Delay in CIS decision on player’s eligibility unfair

Last Wednesday, Dave Montoya made an appeal to a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) committee after questions surrounding the defensive end’s eligibility put the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks football team’s Sept. 11 win over the University of Toronto in jeopardy. It is now a full week later and Montoya and his teammates are finally finding out if their record is 3-2 as it stood as of print time, or 2-3.

The announcement was expected to be made late last week, prior to the Hawks’ Homecoming game versus the Guelph Gryphons on Saturday. However, Thursday and Friday passed without a decision having been made.

The team then had to play on Saturday with the potential season-altering decision hanging over their heads.

While the adversity didn’t end up fazing the Hawks, as they beat the Gryphons 36-2, it was unfair to make the team play while still in the dark regarding what their record truly was.

It really seems like a simple yes or no question. Either Montoya broke the CIS eligibility rule or he did not.

Furthermore, the issue was raised by the York Lions before they played the Hawks on Sept. 25. That gave the CIS at least a week to review all the details of the case even before Montoya’s appeal last Wednesday. What’s almost even more troubling is the fact that it took the Lions bringing the issue to attention for the CIS to investigate.

Why wasn’t this issue confronted and dealt with before the season even started? Montoya has been enrolled at WLU since last January – under the old CIS rules, in which he would be eligible – the CIS had the full summer to realize the potential problem, notify Laurier and make a ruling.

The fact that the team has to deal with this issue in the middle of an already turbulent season is simply not fair.