FAIRFAX, Va. — On Monday night the Fairfax County team at the center of a high school football recruiting scandal met with their coach for the first time since they withdrew from the playoffs.
In November the Hayfield Secondary School dropped out of the playoffs after growing concerns of unfair recruiting practices and questionable text messages by the school's athletic director.
Afterward, we talked with parents and players who say the controversy has upended their lives
“Last week was very hard for my son, he was in shock,” Hayfield football mother Briana Hardaway said. “He said, ‘Mom, I don't understand.’”
“It's been awful for them,” Hayfield father Abraham Kamarck said. “It’s been an emotional roller coaster up and down “
For the first time, we talked to the parents of Hayfield’s football team exclusively on Monday night about the scandal that struck down the team’s season-
“(My son) said, ‘I just don't understand why, why we are paying the price for this and why we're penalized?’” Hardaway said.
Last month the Virginia High School League accused Hayfield’s coach Darryl Overton of illegally recruiting dozens of players to come play at Hayfield.
The league suspended the team for the playoffs. At the same time, FCPS schools said its own investigation cleared the coach and school of wrongdoing.
The parents asked a Fairfax County judge to step in and grant an injunction. He did and the team played one playoff game against Edison High School.
When we asked the parents who did move to Hayfield this school year, they said they didn’t move for Overton.
“My plan was always to move North,” mother Amie Lusney said. “I stayed in the Woodbridge area because of the kids' activities. When Coach Overton decided to move to Hayfield it was a perfect situation for our family because my job is about 15 minutes away from here.”
“People don't understand the residency verification specialist,” Hardaway said. “They was looking for our children, finding out if parents live where they live, they were visiting homes 2 to 4 times. This happened again from May to August. We had to provide extensive documentation.”
As the scandal spread, Fairfax County Superintendent of Schools Michelle Reid called for an external investigation into all sports recruitment. Hayfield’s principal pulled the team from the playoffs and Hayfield’s AD stepped down.
Still, Hayfield's parents say they’ve encountered racially charged online threats.
“There’s been many racial innuendos online in other places and it's been very clear that a lot of this is racially motivated and we're not welcome,” Hardaway said. “They don't want our kids to be here.”
“They have to listen to people call them names and have other parents and other administrators at other schools say terrible things about them,” Kamarck said.
Meanwhile, Coach Overton addressed the players tonight. Sophomore Alpha Conteh said he gave the players a final message for the season.
“He said that we didn't do anything wrong, and he was proud of us,” Conteh said. “He talked about the maturity that it took to go through what we went through.”
Fairfax County’s school board will be meeting this Thursday night. WUSA9 is told more the board may officially launch the external investigation in recruiting in Hayfield and the other schools.