Dobbins Tech boys’ basketball forfeits all wins after playing with an ineligible fifth-year senior

The Dobbins Tech boys’ basketball team will have to forfeit its wins for the 2023-24 season after the program was found to have an ineligible fifth-year senior on the roster, Dobbins coach Derrick Stanton confirmed to City of Basketball Love on Friday.

They will be seeded as the final seed in the Philadelphia Public League tournament.

It wasn’t until after the Public League’s seeding came out that a District 12 representative was made aware that senior Sam Thomas, who gave CoBL permission to use his name, was in his fifth year of high school, according to Public League boys’ basketball chairperson Benjamin Dubin.

This means Dobbins’ 15-7 record this year, including a fourth-place finish in the Pub A Division with a 7-3 record, will be forced to forfeit all of its wins and register an 0-22 record.

The PIAA bylaws state that a student cannot participate in interscholastic athletics if they reached the end of their fourth consecutive year or eighth consecutive semester after eighth grade.

However, the Public League bylaws state that all teams in the league’s top division qualify for playoffs, so Dobbins’ season is not over.

“I thought up about four different options,” Dubin said. “I had to meet with the executive committee of the Philadelphia Public League, I presented the different options, and they voted on what they felt was the best solution. I did not vote in the process.”

Instead of being one of the top four seeds in the Public League bracket and the top seed in their pod with a route to the semifinals, they now have a play-in game against Bartram on Tuesday, with the winner facing Imhotep.

The Panthers beat the Mustangs, 75-42, in December.

“I was more disappointed for the kids because I know how hard they worked. They were excited in the first place to get moved up to Division A and to earn one of the top seeds this year, so I felt bad for them, but I understand [the PIAA] has rules,” Stanton said. “I’m happy that we’re still able to be in the playoffs, but I accept whatever consequences are handed to us.”

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Stanton said he wasn’t aware that Thomas was repeating his freshman year because of academics in 2020-21, which was Stanton’s first year at the school. Stanton said he had Thomas in a class along with several other of his players, all virtual during the COVID year, and when the 2021-22 school year began, he believed that Thomas was a sophomore along with the rest of his classmates.

And since Thomas had not been part of any athletic teams the year before, the school’s athletics director, Jackie Castorino, who assumed her position in August 2020, was not aware, either.

Stanton and Castorino said that Dobbins doesn’t typically have fifth-year students. Castorino explained that a student who fails a class still would advance to the next grade, rather than repeating a grade level. That student would also take “credit recovery” courses in addition to their standard schoolwork.

“I spoke with my principal and she was as blindsided as the rest of us,” Castorino said. “She was under the same impression that we didn’t have fifth-year students.”

In addition, Castorino said that when she submitted this year’s boys’ roster to the Infinite Campus system, which the PIAA uses to report rosters and eligibility information to the state, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“Sam’s number of semesters completed says six like every other senior,” she added. “Yes, I didn’t look at his transcripts, but that’s something that’s right in my face telling me that he is eligible, and that’s what I showed to the other athletic directors and people at the office of athletics in the district.

“It was just a complete oversight, and there was never a reason for me to think or consider that any of our athletes would be in their fifth year.”

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Thomas had appeared in 20 games this season and was sixth on the team in scoring, averaging 6.3 points, according to MaxPreps.

Stanton and Castorino also said that if they knew about Thomas’ eligibility, they would have filed an appeal earlier in the season, and they believe he would have been granted a fifth year by the city because of extenuating circumstances.

“Of all of the kids, for someone to wait until the end of our season to report this about any child, to do it to Sam Thomas is the most horrific thing anyone can do,” Castorino said. “Sam has overcome every horror story you could possibly imagine. He was shot at close range by a friend in the abdomen [in 2020-21], he was out of school for over a month, he had to deal with the COVID virtual thing without access to Wi-Fi. Last year, he came down from a jump shot at practice and shattered his leg.

“He is an amazing person. He really, really is. Everyone in this building has seen him grow and flourish. He does everything possible to make everyone around him happy. He’s the vision of perseverance. I can’t believe this is happening to him.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.