The family of Vancouver basketball player Drew Urquhart will take legal action against his new Seattle high school unless they are given an opportunity to counter the “misinformation” used to deny his athletic eligibility, their lawyer said Tuesday.
Seattle lawyer David Smith was retained by the Urquhart family to represent their interests at Eastside Catholic, a private school in suburban Seattle where Drew is living with a member of the school’s board of trustees. He attends classes and basketball practices but cannot compete with the school team, the Crusaders, in the varsity metro league.
“They have refused my repeated request to allow us to represent the actual facts before someone who hasn’t already made up their mind,” Smith told the Courier in a phone interview.
“Unless the school is going to agree to do the minimum requirement of due process, which means giving the kid a hearing to counter the allegations that are being made and let some neutral decision-maker decide, we have no choice but to file a lawsuit.”
Smith said the school’s administration does not recognize Drew as a foreign exchange student. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association regulates transfers between state schools and from other U.S. states but these restrictions should not apply to the Canadian athlete, the lawyer said.
Furthermore, Smith said Eastside Catholic has not yet submitted a WIAA form that would, importantly, establish Drew’s athletic eligibility as a foreign exchange student.
“The school has refused to submit the form that would get Drew started,” said Smith.
In an interview last week, school president Sister Mary Tracy said she decided Drew was ineligible to play for the Crusaders in the springtime. She also said his transfer raised suspicions that the athlete’s primary reason for changing schools twice in as many years was to play basketball. She said his transfer raised "too many red flags" and she did not want one ineligible player to mean the entire season was foreited.
However, the Urquharts say they were never informed Drew was ineligible until after the school semester had started August 28.
The news came as a stunning and unwelcome surprise for the family. Smith said no Washington school has failed to tell a student-athlete he was ineligible to play for a team with which he was already training and had travelled with to tournaments.
“It’s never happened before that anybody has ever heard of,” he said.
In an interview last week, Drew said he expected to be one of the starting five for the Crusaders.
“The problem we have is if that’s [the school’s] decision, you’d think they’d inform the student and his parents,” said Smith.
Reached Tuesday morning by the Courier, Sister Tracy refused to answer questions. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,” she said and hung up.
Drew played one season with St. George’s in his Grade 11 year after the family moved from Kelowna. They still live in Vancouver and Drew’s younger brothers attend Point Grey secondary.
Rob Urquhart said his son transferred to Eastside Catholic from St. George’s for academic reasons and to ease his transition to the U.S. educational and athletic systems.
Drew has committed to the Division 1 NCAA University of Vermont.
“A few of the [Canadian] players who are already in the NCAA right now, we had spoken to a couple of them and they said that first year transition was so very hard that they’d almost given up,” said Urquhart, who is a special education teacher in a Richmond public school. He also cited information they'd learned about Canadian seven-footer Kelly Olynyk who red-shirted at Gonzaga University to adjust to the NCAA. He now plays in the NBA.
“We were hoping that Drew would be able to go in and get used to the system, then he’d be ready to go.”
In the end, his father acknowledged Drew may not ever play basketball for Eastside Catholic. He said his son will not likely transfer to another school.
“We sent him down for education purposes,” said Urquhart. “At this point in his graduation year, he’s made friends there and we’ll just have to go forward an carry on.”
Urquhart said training with the Crusaders as they play exhibition games and build chemistry before the season causes his son emotional suffering.
“He’s still allowed to practise with the team. He’s having a hard time doing that just because the kids are getting excited for the season so he kind of gets a little bit sad every time they get excited that get might not be able to do it.”
