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Hayfield Secondary School has received a temporary injunction that will allow them to play in the football postseason.
The Virginia High School League confirmed that an appeal filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court by Hayfield parents regarding the reinstatement of the Hayfield football team to the league’s Class 6 Region C football playoffs has been granted.
Due to this ruling, the Region 6C first-round playoff games scheduled for Friday night are postponed, according to a league news release. The release said the ruling does not affect Friday’s first-round playoff games for Region 6A, Region 6B, or Region 6D.
The new first-round schedule for Region 6C begins Nov. 21 and is as follows:
- #1 Hayfield vs. #8 Thomas Edison
- #2 Lake Braddock vs. #7 Mount Vernon
- #3 West Springfield vs. #6 South County
- #4 Fairfax vs. #5 West Potomac
A Fairfax County Circuit Court judge ruled just before 4 p.m. Friday in Hayfield’s favor to grant the injunction, which was requested by Hayfield parents after the Virginia High School League banned the Hawks from the postseason for two seasons. Another hearing is scheduled for Dec. 4.
Hayfield Secondary School lost its final appeal Nov. 8 to overturn a two-year postseason ban in football imposed by the league. The final decision was made by a three-person Virginia High School League subcommittee, which heard from both Hayfield and the league Nov. 7 via Zoom before rendering its decision.
The hearing took place after the league’s Sportsmanship Committee previously denied Hayfield’s initial appeal to remain eligible to compete in the playoffs for 2024 and 2025.
Once the initial appeal was denied, Hayfield had the option of appealing once more to a subcommittee. That was due to be the final step Hayfield could take within the Virginia High School League before the playoffs began.
Hayfield finished 9-1 and rated No. 1 in Class 6, Region C in the power point ratings.
In a statement to the families of James W. Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, principal Tracey Phillips said she was disappointed to hear the Robinson Rams football team would not be participating in the postseason play after Hayfield was reinstated to the playoff games.
“I empathize with our players, band, cheerleaders, and all others who delivered a spectacular experience for our community this fall,” she wrote. “We look forward to rooting for our Rams next year on the football field.”
Questions have swirled around the Hayfield team since it hired former Freedom-Woodbridge football coach Darryl Overton in February. Overton led Freedom to the last two Class 6 state championships.
This summer, the Fairfax County school system investigated whether students from Freedom had followed Overton to Hayfield and were not living in Hayfield’s school district.
After a two-month investigation, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid in August announced Hayfield’s football program had been cleared of any wrongdoing regarding transfers and eligibility.
But the Virginia High School League had engaged in an investigation of its own, which led to two-year postseason ban.
In a letter dated Oct. 29, 2024, and addressed to the Virginia High School League’s executive committee, league Executive Director Billy Haun explained why the league is seeking to sanction Hayfield’s football team.
The league said it believes Hayfield violated the league’s Proselytizing Rule, which states, “No member school or group of individuals representing the school shall subject a student from another school to undue influence by encouraging him/her to transfer from one school to another for League activities.”
In addition, the letter stated the “VHSL staff also finds that the Hayfield administration did not adhere to the Guiding Principle of VHSL policy.”
The Guiding Principle states that “League member schools and their individual and team representatives are required to observe and comply implicitly with both the spirit and the letter of all League rules and regulations in those interscholastic activities regulated by Sections 50 through 129 of this Handbook and in those activities sponsored by a district or a region. These rules and regulations are applicable to all who represent their schools in VHSL, Inc. sponsored interscholastic competition, whether individual or team, whether varsity, junior varsity or reserve.”
The Virginia High School League also said Hayfield staff failed to uphold the “spirit of all League rules and regulations.”
That, in turn, “directly affected other member schools and student athletes” at Hayfield, Freedom-Woodbridge and any “student-athletes and communities of VHSL member schools” who competed against Hayfield football this season.
In particular, the league said 15 students-athletes who were on the 2023 Hayfield football roster “are either not playing or have transferred to a different school and are not part of the 2024 Hayfield team.”
FCPS issued a statement on Friday’s ruling, saying, in part, it “applauds the hard work and dedication of all of our student-athletes during the regular season, and we look forward to cheering on all of our participants in postseason competition over the next several weeks.”
The statement went on to say, “FCPS remains committed to working with the VHSL and our sister schools to improve the process for determining student-athlete eligibility and to ensure greater clarity in the rules and processes that guide student activities and athletics in Virginia.”
