By Dylan Hackett

Te past few weeks have held
days of bitter disappointment
for the Douglas College Royals
men’s soccer squad, as they fell from
first to last place in the PACWEST
rankings. The fall to last was not due to
a Royals mistake made on the pitch—in
fact, before the Sports Administrator‘s
office discovered the ineligibility of
player Simrin Rattanpal, the team led
the league with a record of eight wins,
one draw, and a loss. With their top spot
in the region, the Royals were, more
likely than not, destined for provincials.

“We lost all that time we could’ ve
used to study, to work. We put the
six months of training in and it’s for
nothing. We were set for nationals.
We were going to Quebec. There’s
no question about it,” lamented
defenseman Devlin Periera.

“We feel gutted,” said midfielder
Drew Foster.

The flagship athletics team of
Douglas College lost all their wins in
a decision enacted by PACWEST on
October 21.

Captain Dylan Myers weighed in
on the decision, “PACWEST did their
job when it [came] to disciplining us.
Our school made the mistake. They
owned up to the mistake, but the
mistake shouldn’t have happened in
the first place. It’s not [PACWEST’s]
responsibility to check student credits,
it’s [Douglas’]—and we can’t put any
fault on them. The blame has to go to
the college.”

Director of Campus Life and
Athletics, Kyle Baillie, explained
how the team lost their wins. “It’s
shockingly simple. Every one of
our student athletes has to maintain
eligibility. Eligibility, as defined by
PACWEST, is generally 18 credits
over an academic year and nine credits
in the season they’re participating in.
What ended up happening was one of
our soccer players did not accomplish
18 credits /ast year. In that time, he
accomplished 16. What ended up
happening was that when we were
doing credential eligibility checks
we made a math error. The error was
when you add nine credits plus seven
credits we came up with 18—and we
should’ve come up with 16.”

 

The team felt disenfranchised that
their season ended because of a math
error. The week after the discovery
of the ineligibility was also one
marred with confusion. “We were at
practice when we found [out about
the disqualification] and [the details]
were really hazy and we were told it’s
a school issue. I personally found out
when I was at work from a guy on
another team and he said, ‘your points
are all gone, what’s going on?’ and so I
didn’t really find out why until the next
practice. It pissed me off,” said Myers.
“The thing that was troublesome was
the athletic director never came and
told us what was going on, it was more
word-of-mouth from our coach, so
there was a lot of confusion over the
weekend and by the time we found out
on the Monday it was as if someone
kicked us in the nuts.”

After that Monday, the team
had a meeting with Baillie clearing
the fog surrounding the issue and
confirming the failure of an appeal.
This didn’t clear the hard feelings for
Myers, “Basically, he just went over
what happened. He didn’t really go
into much detail. Kyle apologized, we
know he wasn’t the one who made
the mistake. The big thing was at the
meeting he cracked a joke about how
the Athletic Department was happy
that we’re not going to nationals and
provincials because it saved the school
a lot of money. So they save $40;000
and make a joke about it. I didn’t smile
for a week after he said that. It was
pretty uncalled for.”

“We were so far ahead of this
league we were making everyone look
horrible. To have it all taken away at
the snap of a finger... it could have
been any of us,” said Periera. “To make
an error like that...”

“And not have to face the
consequences...” chimed in Rattanpal.
“The consequences were on us.”

“It’s a thing of pride too. Putting
on your jersey you’re supposed to
represent your college. We did that
and we played with sportsmanship
and represented the school as winners.
That’s the part we do on the field. We
shouldn’t have to worry about the
administrative part. Now next year I’m
going to be thinking, ‘is this done right,
is that done right? Are we eligible?’
The [Athletics Department] said they

Royals beat bya
numbers game:

Soccer squad misses out on provincials
as a result of a clerical error

could compensate us, but couldn’t go
into detail about it but really, how can
you compensate eight months of hard
work?” said Myers.

Baillie understood the concerns
the players hold. “As a former college
athlete I know that you only get so
many opportunities to go to provincials
or potentially go to nationals. To
have that mistake cost them one of
those opportunities hurts. That’s gut-
wrenching. That’s not something I can
just give back.”

“Tt was an error that didn’t happen
on the field. Obviously, the individual
player bears some responsibility for
playing when he should’ ve known he
was ineligible and not notifying us of
that, but we didn’t catch it so it was a
clerical, administrative error and as a
result the team got punished for it and
that’s not okay.”

“Ultimately, it was a mistake that
happened in the department and we
do on average 600 eligibility checks
per year and those are done by people
looking at numbers, adding numbers
together.”

Baillie also assured the Other
Press that he’s taken action to prevent
this from happening in the future. “We
have put safeguards in place. We had
double-checks in place before, but

(Pent

 

we’ve changed slightly the double-
check process so that the original
documents now accompany the
eligibility forms.”

While battered by their season’s
untimely and unfair ending, the lads
still have sights on the future and
aren’t putting their ambitions aside.
With faint optimism, Myers said,

“You get motivation in losing against
other teams, but when your school is
the reason you lost it’s hard to grasp
motivation out of that so that’ll be
tough, but we have a bunch of guys
coming back and we host nationals.”

Although the team is likely to be
stacked with the same roster which
was poised for championship glory
this year, no clerical mishap can bar
them from nationals next year as the
host team is granted entry regardless of
points standing. Though they feel that
they will earn their spot next year, the
assurance doesn’t hurt.

For many of the team, including
Myers, next year’s hosting of nationals
is the final shot at glory. “To be honest,
if there wasn’t nationals here next year
a lot of the guys would leave because
the respect for the college has gone
quite a bit down with a mistake like the
[one made by the Athletic Department].
Next year is the ‘make it or break it.’””