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Court voids Manor High playoff forfeiture; school division outlines eligibility dispute with VHSL
Summary
At a March 19 Portsmouth City School Board work session, counsel and staff summarized a legal dispute over Manor High’s postseason eligibility: a Feb. 19 game was forfeited by VHSL, a court later voided that forfeiture, and the division says administrative paperwork failures — not misconduct by students — were the root cause.
Portsmouth, Va. — School board counsel Adam Curl told the Portsmouth City School Board on March 19 that a courtroom ruling overturned a Virginia High School League (VHSL) determination that had forfeited Manor High School’s Feb. 19 playoff win, and that the division handled two related eligibility issues that followed.
Curl recounted a timeline in which Manor’s athletic director self-reported a possible ineligible player on Feb. 24; VHSL treated the Feb. 19 contest as forfeited; an injunction and a show-cause order were filed Feb. 27; and a March 2 hearing resulted in a written order that voided the forfeiture and dissolved the temporary injunction. “We were not going to hide from the facts in the case,” Curl said. “But we did not believe that a student athlete and the team for that matter should lose their postseason opportunity because of an alleged failure of adults to complete paperwork and follow procedural steps.”
Curl said the division was not a named party in the initial injunction filing, that no subpoena had been served on its athletic director for the early hearing, and that outside counsel was retained to represent the athletic director once a show cause was issued. He said the division’s position at the March 2 hearing — and in follow-up discussions with VHSL counsel and the plaintiffs’ lawyer — was that the player involved was substantively eligible and that the paperwork omissions were administrative compliance failures rather than concealment or efforts to gain competitive advantage.
The board was told the court’s decision rested largely on due-process concerns: the judge was “very concerned about the lack of notice that the student and guardian received,” Curl said, and therefore declined to sustain an injunction that would penalize the child or the team. The court’s order, as described at the meeting, voided the prior eligibility determination and the Feb. 27 temporary injunction.
Board members were also told that VHSL publicly disagreed with the court in a March 5 news release and that VHSL later requested additional documentation on March 9 related to a different player’s presence on the season roster. Curl said the division gathered supporting records and argued that the second player was otherwise eligible and that the omission from the master eligibility list was an administrative error that had been corrected.
Superintendent-level staff and board members asked why the division had not pursued an injunction earlier and whether the district could have gathered evidence and intervened sooner. Dr. Bracie and Curl said timing and notice constraints limited options: the division had not been formally served in the early hearing, and some actions — such as filing on behalf of students — present legal and ethical limits for the school division’s counsel. “I could represent the school division, but I would not be able to represent the children individually,” Curl explained during discussion of potential legal strategies.
Board members pressed for stronger internal controls. The division told the board it has requested VHSL support for training athletic directors and principals on the updated eligibility rules that took effect July 1, 2025, added sign-off requirements for coaches and principals on eligibility lists, and planned compliance checks across sports to verify background checks and required paperwork for volunteer coaches. A district staff memo on the second eligibility matter was forwarded to VHSL on March 16; the board was told no further response had been received as of the March 19 meeting.
The presentation included specific references to VHSL rules discussed at the meeting (identified in district materials as rule 30-4-1, rule 27-8-6 and rule 30-5-1) and to court actions that voided the forfeiture of Manor’s Feb. 19 game. The division emphasized the distinction between administrative compliance errors by adults and student misconduct, and said the priority was preventing similar situations through training and stronger internal procedures.
The board did not take formal action on the VHSL items at the March 19 session; staff said follow-up training, documentation improvements and additional conversations with VHSL counsel are planned.
