One of the best high school football teams in Missouri forfeited all of their wins and canceled the remainder of their season after an investigation revealed the coach allowed a suspended student to play in the team's first game. Cardinal Ritter College Prep junior running back, Bill Jackson, was supposed to sit out the game after getting ejected from the 2018 Class 3 state championship game last season.
It turns out that Jackson never served the suspension. Instead of sitting out the game, he suited up wearing a different jersey. Jackson was introduced as freshman Marvin Burks and came out onto the field with the number 24 on his back. The scam was discovered after people noticed "Burks" had identical tattoos to Jackson.
After the allegations came to light, the Archdiocese of St. Louis self -reported the violation to the Missouri State High School Athletic Association and announced that head coach Brandon Gregory and his entire staff had been fired. In addition, the school forfeited all of their wins from this season and canceled their remaining games.
Gregory apologized for what happened and explained that he believed Jackson had served his suspension the week before, during the Jamboree game. He denied covering up the fact that Jackson suited up and was unaware the running back changed his number prior to the game.
"That's a thing our kids do on the regular basis, you know, they try to change jersey numbers and sometimes don't let us know," said Gregory.