Special to The Times A rival school and a rival parent tipped off the GHSA to possible recruiting violations that ended with Appling County’s football team forfeiting 10 victories and its region championship, according to GHSA records.
In the end, it was the player and coach who Pierce County identified which prompted the GHSA’s final ruling that Appling County violated a recruiting and undue influence bylaw called “following a coach.”
“GHSA initially approved three students for enrollment prior to their involvement in athletics at Appling County High School,” Appling County Schools superintendent Janet Goodman said in a released statement. “After the football season was completed, GHSA reversed itself and made a decision, based on allegations made by neighboring coaches and individuals connected with those coaches, to suspend the athletic eligibility of three Appling County students.”
The rule is widely known among athletic directors and most coaches, but not to many parents and players.
The “following a coach rule” makes an athlete ineligible for one year if he follows a former coach to a new school. The coach does not have to be a player’s former high school coach.
The coach can be a year-round, club or AAU team coach; a paid or unpaid private instructor or trainer; or a camp instructor. The rule is designed to curb recruiting, although the GHSA does not have to prove the coach purposefully tried to influence the athlete to transfer.
The GHSA fined Appling County $2,000 for recruiting and undue influence and $1,000 for allowing an ineligible transfer student to participate.
Appling County opened up the head coaching position Friday, April 25 after severing ties with Jordan Mullis. The position was filled Tuesday, April 29 with the hiring of Fitzgerald’s Tucker Pruitt.
According to the GHSA, region foe Cook High filed the first complaint Saturday, October 26 prompting an investigation. Appling County defeated the Hornets 38-14 Friday, October 25 in Adel.
In an email to the GHSA, a parent of a Cook High player pointed out two Appling County players, a junior and a sophomore, played at Cook the previous season. Appling County assistant coach Tavaris Williams, Sr., was on Cook’s football and track staff in 2023-24.
Williams also helped coach a non-school team called the South Georgia All-Stars for which one of the new Appling County players has played.
“We get things from parents and community members that aren’t associated with the school all the time,” GHSA executive director Tim Scott said. “There has to be some kind of evidence that we can act on or go to the school with. It can’t just be an accusation.”
On January 7, the GHSA notified Appling County of the potential violations and requested a response. Appling County showed the two former Cook players transferred in the spring and that Williams was hired in the summer. That cleared the school of the followingthe- coach charges.
PCHS, which was unbeaten (8-0) and ranked first in Class AA, lost 13-7 in Baxley a week later (November 1). Pierce County principal Kelly Murray wrote the GHSA Monday, November 4 regarding a third Appling County player, whose ineligibility ultimately led to the forfeits.
The player, a junior, transferred the previous winter from West Nassau High in Callahan, FL. Appling County offensive line coach Ian Silberman, a former NFL player hired in January 2024, had run a February 2024 camp in Florida the player attended, the complaint alleged.
Pierce County copied and provided a February 18 social media post from the player thanking Silberman for the instruction. The player enrolled at Appling County 11 days later (February 29), GHSA records show.
PCHS’s letter to GHSA indicated its athletic director was alerted to the camp by the player’s former high school coach at West Nassau. According to the former coach, Silberman recruited the player to Appling County and let him live with him when he first moved into Appling County. That was never proven.
The GHSA made the Florida transfer ineligible March 28 of this year and handed down the forfeits and the fine. Appling County’s appeal was denied April 22.
Appling County argued the GHSA approved the Florida player’s transfer in August. Schools are required to turn in the names of all transfers to have them preapproved. But the GHSA said that doesn’t prevent new information from overruling the initial approval.
“Although the eligibility reports were filed and cleared by the GHSA office, at that time, the GHSA was not aware of the students’ affiliations and athletic-participation history,” GHSA associate director for compliance Carror Wright wrote to Appling County in the March 28 letter that outlined the penalties.
The GHSA did not assess penalties during the season because requests to investigate a transfer student’s eligibility must be filed within 20 days of the end of the regular season for penalties to be applied before the end of the playoffs.
That rule is meant to prevent schools from holding evidence and turning in another school at a strategic point in the season.
