Memphis HS baseball team suspended from next 2 playoffs for 'knowingly' using ineligible player

Mitchell High School (Memphis, Tenn.) has been removed from the baseball playoffs for this year and next after TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress ruled that coach Rodregus Scruggs “knowingly played an ineligible player” in a District 16-AA tournament game with Trezevant on Thursday.

“For a school official who has been given the responsibility to serve as a role model for young people to admit they knowingly violated a rule is very concerning and will not be tolerated,” Childress wrote in a letter to the Mitchell High administration. “We request that the administration at Mitchell High School take the necessary steps to ensure this type (of) situation does not occur again.”

Childress placed Mitchell’s baseball program on restrictive probation through the 2019-20 school year and fined it $2,000. Teams are banned from postseason play while on restrictive probation.

Scruggs declined comment when reached by the USA Today Network – Tennessee on Friday.

Mitchell defeated Trezevant in Thursday’s postseason play-in game, but Childress ruled it as a no contest, keeping Trezevant in the playoffs.

The letter states that Scruggs played the ineligible player to keep from having to forfeit the game.