Moon senior and Pitt target Donovan Johnson will not be eligible to play during his senior year of high school, the WPIAL ruled on Monday.
Johnson, who led the Moon Tigers to a PIAA Class 5-A state championship earlier this spring, played just one season at Moon after transferring from OLSH in 2018.
The transfer was not the issue with his eligibility, as so often is the case. Instead, an issue arose because Johnson repeated eighth grade.
PIAA rules state that a player can only participate in six school years of athletics after sixth grade. Because Johnson repeated eighth grade, he has already used all six of his seasons, despite just finishing his junior year at Moon.
Monday’s hearing was due to Johnson’s request for a waiver of the rule, which was denied after being once rescheduled.
“The WPIAL board denied it because they did not feel it met the criteria established for them to grant it,” WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley said to Trib HSSN.
Johnson is the younger brother of former Pitt and North Carolina guard Cameron Johnson and the son of former Pitt player Gil Johnson.
Neither Johnson nor his father returned a request for comment for this story.
this is pure bs led by hs coaches that never mentally graduated from 6th grade
Alan. Now that he is ineligible can he reclassify to 2019. If so, what do you think Pitt’s chances are of getting him. Or is he a candidate for a Prep school.
Those are the options. I just don’t know if he will have time to do what he needs to do academically to qualify. There’s a chance he could go to college and have to take an academic redshirt.
He could also go to a prep school or a private school like First Love for his senior year.
But before any of that, I’d expect some kind of appeal of this decision, most likely to the PIAA.
Thanks for the clarity. You summed up what I thought completely. The PIAA could over turn that decision through appeal. I would not bet on it though. He is better off going to a First love or going to Pitt, etc and taking the academic redshirt. Keep up the good work on the site!
Dad has three choices: prep school (is that Oak Hill Academy calling?); if he had the credits, college; or our route, injunction. By the time the case was heard, our daughter was pretty well through her senior season. Two of the options cost money.
His brother graduated from Pitt with a 3.9 QPA in 3-years so I expect Donovan has the same intellectual capacity. Is that Coach Capel calling?