{"id":1628,"date":"2015-12-06T19:19:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T23:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=1628"},"modified":"2015-12-07T16:24:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T20:24:25","slug":"1628","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=1628","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

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There\u2019s no rational eligibility standard that can be applied to a public high school athlete charged with attempted murder. But in New York City\u2019s Public Schools Athletic League, you\u2019re\u00a0allowed to suit up and play as long as your grades and attendance are up to snuff.<\/p>\n

Grand Street Campus of Brooklyn won Sunday\u2019s PSAL City Conference Championship 28-26 at Yankee Stadium and wouldn\u2019t have\u00a0got the W\u00a0without\u00a0leaning on a ball carrier\u00a0who likely faces serious jail time by the time next year\u2019s city title is settled.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear who tipped them off, but NY1 broke the story. Grand Street star running back Rahmel Ashby has been forced to make bail twice in the last 18 months after two separate serious incidents which should have kept him off the football field. He\u2019s charged with firing a gun into a crowd in Fort Greene in May 2014. Three people were struck and injured. And then while awaiting trial on attempted murder charges in that case, he was caught five weeks ago with a gun he had no legal right to carry. I know we\u2019re tough stuff here in the big city, but we\u2019re talking about a high school kid playing on an undefeated football team and nobody from his school or the PSAL\u00a0had the sense to\u00a0deny Ashby\u00a0the privilege of participating in athletics?<\/p>\n

And then – when the lid got blown off the school’s\u00a0ruse\u00a0– how can both\u00a0Grand Street’s\u00a0athletic director Johnny Chavez in concert with the PSAL\u00a0close ranks and let the kid play?\u00a0 What possibly could lead one to\u00a0believe presumption of innocence is the proper course after the second bust for packing heat?<\/p>\n

I mean, you can understand why Grand Street\u2019s coach Bruce Eugene wants Ashby to play despite the young man\u2019s more pressing life concerns. Ashby (pictured above running the ball on Sunday in the title game) is a great player. He\u2019s elusive and fast. He certainly doesn\u2019t need a gun to run. And Grand Street\u00a0would not have won\u00a0its first city title on Sunday without him. Ashby gave Grand Street\u2019s offense great balance with\u00a0a legitimate\u00a0ground threat. Grand Street\u2019s QB Sharif Harris-Legree set up the pass with heavy doses of Ashby who moved up the field most effectively to the left side.<\/p>\n

But at this level – or in any league really – Ashby cannot be allowed to participate. It\u2019s embarrassing to the PSAL and Grand Street Campus that he was out there. Even the NFL would have found a way to keep him at home.<\/p>\n

It seems outrageous. Especially\u00a0in a\u00a0week with so much discussion\u00a0about gun madness.<\/p>\n

Most disconcerting to me is that Julian Garcia of the Daily News tried to get the other side of this story and was met with a whole lot of stonewall. Garcia wrote that he called Eugene for comment and the Grand Street coach hung up on him. Garcia also reached out to two top PSAL officials and neither returned e-mails.<\/p>\n

At some point in the next couple days you\u2019d think the Mayor – or perhaps schools Chancellor Carmen Farina will be asked to explain how this went down under their watch.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s too bad, but the focus in the papers the next couple days may be on Ashby when Harris-Legree (pictured above) should have been the story. He’s so accurate with his throws – and so composed.\u00a0 Legree would seem likely to enjoy\u00a0a bright career at the next level.<\/p>\n

This game was played at Yankee Stadium. It\u2019s a really cool venue for this event but only if you’re willing to\u00a0jump through the hoops necessary to gain entry. First, the PSAL\u00a0makes you apply for a ticket during a limited time window and then they ask you to pick up your ducat at an out-of-the-way office just off the East River on the Queens side. After fulfilling the initial e-mail query approval process to gain clearance to attend the game, I took the train and made the hike over to PSAL HQ and signed three separate clipboards at desks manned by needless city government bureaucrats to finally get handed a free ticket.<\/p>\n

The PSAL is so freaked out about the scrums outside the hoops title game at MSG more than a decade ago and can\u2019t stage a big game without going overboard on the restrictions.<\/p>\n

At the venue Sunday morning, members of the city\u2019s school safety patrol yelled at young attendees who jumped redundant barriers at the entrances. Supporters for the two schools were completely barred from mingling. The sun\u00a0beamed bright\u00a0on the Erasmus Hall side. It was cold on the Grand Street section. If you were neutral – like me – and assigned to the Grand Street side – you were stuck. I don\u2019t know. It seems like the PSAL always expects trouble when there\u2019s none to be had.<\/p>\n

The PSAL really should get a clue and let people go to public high school games unencumbered and without undue restrictions. Let TSR and some pals run the PSAL for less than\u00a0what this crew\u00a0is burning through\u00a0and I can personally guarantee New York City will have a better public school athletics program by a mile.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d say there were probably 6500 in the house for the game. Both sides had mascots. Only Erasmus had a cheerleading squad. Free game programs were distributed at the door. The P-A announcer was bad, misidentifying players and mischaracterizing penalties.<\/p>\n

When the sound system played No Sleep \u2019til Brooklyn during a first half timeout, the crowd (almost all from Brooklyn) paid\u00a0no attention to the song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no rational eligibility standard that can be applied to a public high school athlete charged with attempted murder. But in New York City\u2019s Public Schools Athletic League, you\u2019re\u00a0allowed to suit up and play as long as your grades and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-1628","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1633,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions\/1633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}