Gray Collegiate Academy football appeal to be heard Thursday

The Eagles will learn if the SCHL will allow them to participate in the 2024 state playoffs

The Gray Collegiate Academy football is awaiting the outcome of Thursday morning meeting of the SCHL executive committee to learn if it will be allowed to play in the 2024 South Carolina high school football playoffs. / Gray Collegiate Academy Football Twitter

Gray Collegiate Academy will find out Thursday morning whether it will be allowed to participate in the upcoming football state playoffs.

The South Carolina High School League (SCHL) is holding a specially called executive committee meeting Thursday at 10:45 a.m. to hear Gray Collegiate’s appeal on student eligibility.

Use of an eligible player means disqualification from the state playoffs and forfeiture of wins.

Gray Collegiate is already without the services of head coach D’Angelo Bryant and an assistant coach, who were suspended for the rest of the season. The executive committee also fined Gray Collegiate $2,500 and put the charter school on warning status for all sports for one year. The sanctions were violations of the SCHSL’s rules on recruiting. 

“We recognize recruiting as unsportsmanlike conduct,” said SCHSL commissioner Jerome Singleton during the executive committee’s hearing via Zoom on Oct. 30. “It’s probably one of the most egregious violations a school can make.”

But the executive committee did not at the time decide on the student eligibility item that was on the agenda for the Oct. 30 meeting.

Specifically, the states: “Uphold the SC High School League sanction relief decision with the modification of increasing the fine from $500 to $2,500, the head coach and assistant coach will be suspended from full activities until the end of the football season, and Gray Collegiate Academy is on warning status for all sports for one (1) calendar year.”

The student in question was enrolled at Gray Collegiate for a brief period at the beginning of the school year. 

Gray Collegiate named assistant coaches Howie Bayer and Treigh Sullivan as co-interim coaches for the remainder of the 2024 season. 

Bayer was previously the interim coach when Adam Holmes resigned last December. Holmes had been Gray Collegiate’s head coach since the school’s inception in 2014. The former South Carolina Gamecock football player was 76-35 at Gray Collegiate, leading the War Eagles to the 2021 Class AA state championship. Gray Collegiate fell 35-28 to Oceanside Collegiate Academy in the Class AA championship game.

Bayer was Holmes’ defensive coordinator at Orangeburg Prep and made the move to Gray Collegiate as well.

Sullivan was previously the head coach at Dreher.

Bryant, a former Wake Forest football player, was named head coach at Gray Collegiate in February after six years at his alma mater, Silver Bluff. The Bulldogs were 38-24 in Bryant’s six seasons, reaching the 2021 2-A state championship game. He won state championships in 2000 and 2001 as a player at Silver Bluff.

Gray Collegiate, in its first season as a Class AAAA program, is 7-2 heading into Friday’s showdown with North Augusta for the Region 4-AAAA championship. Both teams are 6-0 in the region. The War Eagles’ two losses were to reigning Class AAAAA state champion Dutch Fork and Tennessee power Baylor.

Prior to the current school year, Gray Collegiate was a Class AA school. But the SCHSL adopted an out-of-zone attendance multiplier. Each student who lives outside a school’s assigned attendance zone counts as three. As a result, Gray Collegiate moved up to Class AAAA.

The SCHSL went in that direction to improve competitive balance after receiving complaints that charter schools and private schools had an unfair advantage.