Judge rules Syracuse City football team can continue historic season in playoffs

Syracuse, N.Y. — The Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central football team’s historic season will continue after a judge ruled in its favor Friday morning.
Section III, the governing body of over 100 high school athletics programs in Central New York, disqualified ITC from the playoffs on Monday after they said the team used an ineligible player in their previous game.
The Syracuse City School District filed a lawsuit Thursday asking the court to reinstate its football team‘s victory over Vernon Verona Sherill in last week’s Class B quarterfinal and allow it back into the playoffs.
Arguments were heard by Onondaga County Supreme Court Justice Robert Antonacci II.
At the end of the nearly two-and-half-hour hearing, Antonacci brought the lawyers into his chambers for his decision. The decision was not announced in the courtroom by the judge.
Kristen Benson, the Syracuse City School District’s attorney, relayed Antonacci’s decision to the courtroom.
Antonacci said about meeting the “arbitrary and capricious” standard, “you know it when you see it,” according to Benson. Antonacci also said that ITC did everything it could to act with due diligence.
Antonacci said ITC was effectively denied the opportunity to appeal, according to the written decision.
While waiting for the decision, ITC head football coach Raquan Pride-Green said he was more anxious than before any championship game he’d ever played. But when Benson announced that ITC would play tonight, he said he felt “overjoyed” and excited for his players. The rest of the room erupted in cheers.
“Overjoyed, man. Just happy that our kids get the opportunity to play on the field because they deserve it,” he said.
The heart of the legal issue lies with the standard of “arbitrary and capricious.” Antonacci found that the decision to grant the VVS appeal based on the ITC player’s eligibility status was not based in reason.
Jeremy Sher, the attorney representing Section III, said that by having to decide this matter in a courtroom, everyone had lost already. He said that the legal standard that has to be met to overturn anything is “extreme.”
He said while it breaks his heart that no matter what happened, kids are being impacted, but the city did not follow the proper grounds for appeal.
Benson said that the district was told by Section III Executive Director Jason Czarny that they could not do anything until an officials’ ejection report was filed. Their appeal on that basis could not be heard until that report, which was filed after the VVS game, was in front of Czarny.
Czarny was not immediately available to respond to the judge‘s decision to overturn ITC’s disqualification from the playoffs.
The section released a statement Friday afternoon.
“We are aware of Judge Antonacci’s decision and respect it fully,” the statement read. “It is unfortunate that this situation played out in the manner that it did, and that it results in a number of our student-athletes being confused and upset – justifiably so.”
After the district told Czarny that based on their correspondence they believed the player was eligible, Czarny responded that without that report, it is like the ejection did not occur, Benson said.
Benson argued that Czarny’s emails to district officials should be considered official correspondence from Section III. The judge had to decide whether that correspondence provided enough evidence to support the city’s claim that they did everything they could and were under the impression that the player was eligible.
Czarny‘s email correspondence with the SCSD was a key part of Antonacci’s decision.
Stephen Ciotoli, the attorney representing VVS, said ITC took a chance playing the ejected player while they knew the issue of his eligibility was still in dispute.
“That was a risky decision,” Ciotoli said, “and apparently they paid some price for that risky decision.”
The arguments made clear that there were clerical mistakes made by all parties. Antonacci was tasked with weighing which of these issues takes precedence and whether they met the very high standard of the law.
Before the decision was made, Najah Salaam Jennings-Bey, a parent of ITC player Samir Salaam Jennings-Bey, said the team felt “cheated” by the situation, but wasn’t surprised. Black players from the inner city are often subjected to unfair referee calls, she said, especially when they play against rural or suburban schools.
The call in question happened during the third quarter of ITC’s regular-season finale against Indian River on Oct. 25.
Antonacci opened the hearing by saying, “Can we all agree (the player) was nowhere near the play.”
ITC then defeated VVS in the quarterfinal playoff matchup on Nov. 1. VVS challenged the result of the game because they said ITC used an ineligible player.
On Friday, during a break in the hearing, Salaam Jennings-Bey said she thought Antonacci’s decision would be a tough one, especially since one team won’t get to play the game. She hoped that he would make the right choice and allow ITC the chance to play.
“ITC deserves to play on the field tonight,” Salaam Jennings-Bey said. “They won the game. They won the game fair against VVS, and they should not be punished or penalized because adults don’t want to do what’s right and what’s in the best interest of the children.”
Salaam Jennings-Bey added that she hopes the dispute will improve representation among Section III’s decision-makers. If someone who better represented students in the city of Syracuse sat on Section III’s board, they could help people understand some of the challenges students face, and hopefully, issues like this wouldn’t happen, she said.
“Parents most certainly should look at galvanizing and really reinforcing the fact that we want fair representation,” she said.
The decision sets a precedent for all Syracuse City games going forward, Pride-Green said. This isn’t the first time the school district has had a complaint about how Section III treated the school, he said.
“It’s not just about tonight’s game, it’s about all the games going forward and all the kids who are not even in school right now,” he said. “We play for the SCSD in the future.”
As Pride-Green spoke with reporters following the hearing, his phone was blowing up with texts from his players excited about the game. As soon as he heard the decision, Pride-Green texted them, “It’s lit, let’s go run it tonight.”
Many of the students on the team work harder than players at other schools, Pride-Green said, and compete with a much smaller team. Still, they deserve the opportunity to play, he said. Given the decision, Pride-Green said he’s going to push them even harder now to win.
“(I‘ll) yell at them like I always do,” Pride-Green said with a laugh. “I will reiterate, like I said before, ’Don‘t have us do all this fighting and use all these resources for you not to come in and perform.’ So I will let them know we still have a game to win, we still have to compete.
“We did all the fighting so they didn’t have to fight. Now they can go fight on the field.”
Staff writer Anne Hayes covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her at [email protected].
Maggie Hicks covers education, including the Syracuse City School District and Syracuse University. She can be reached at [email protected] or follow her on X @maggie_hickss.
Contact Kenny Lacy Jr. anytime: Email | X