Athletes attending the Rich Township school district’s Phoenix Campus school will not be approved for NCAA initial eligibility, thanks to the organization’s crackdown on non-traditional high schools with questionable academic standards. So it’s probably good that the south suburban school doesn’t exist anymore. In what amounts to a paperwork snafu that created much ado, the NCAA placed Phoenix Campus on a list of 15 schools that have been invalidated and no longer are approved for NCAA initial eligibility. But Phoenix Campus was shut down as of the district’s graduation in late May. A letter from the NCAA seeking information likely was ignored because the school was closing. The students–there were about 70 last year–will reintegrate into an alternative-education program at whichever Rich Township school they belong to geographically–their “home” school.
