High School Will Appeal Boys' Basketball Penalty

Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS) will today appeal a Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) vote to bar the high school boys' basketball team from playing in the state championship tournament.

The decision, which stems from a charge that CRLS coaches recruited players, requires the team to forfeit every game in which the ineligible players participated. The athletes in question have played in almost every game this season.

Court Order

If the appeal is sustained, the CRLS will play in the Division I tournament, now postponed by court order until the MIAA council decides the case.

But if the council upholds the decision made by its Board of Control, the Cambridge team will be eliminated from the tournament.

Hurt Feelings

"Either way, some kids will be hurt," Richard F. Neal, executive director of the MIAA, said yesterday. "The council doesn't have the luxury of asking, 'What's best for the kids?'" he added.

The MIAA decision last week came on the heels of a January 31 vote by the association to take away the 1979 state championship from the girls' team because two coaches had recruited player Medina Dixon from Boston.

At that time the MIAA also put the boys' team on probation for recruiting violations but decided to let the team play out the season. The reversal of that decision was a response to an appeal from athletic directors of suburban league teams.

"If CRLS games are forfeited, the direct beneficiaries are those teams that were complaining the penalty wasn't hard enough," Sara Mae Berman, chairman of the Cambridge School Committee subcommittee on athletics and physical education, said yesterday.

"That doesn't sound like due process to me," she added.

She said she had found the MIAA procedures "unbusiness-like" and some MIAA rules arbitrary.

For the Detense

Neal defended the association, saying, "Our objective is to conduct hearings informally and give youngsters every opportunity to present their grievances to us informally."

The School Committee will conduct its own hearings on the recruiting violations and will take appropriate action, Berman said.