The University Interscholastic League’s state executive committee took severe measures to punish the Oak Cliff Faith Family Academy girls basketball program and its coaches Wednesday while preventing a super team built from 18 transfers from competing for a state title this season.
Faith Family head coach Andrea Robinson and assistant coaches Kadi Creel and Jordan Jones were each suspended for two years for recruiting violations. That is one year short of the maximum penalty allowed.
Faith Family as a school was found guilty of recruiting violations, a lack of transparency and withholding information and the UIL banned the girls basketball program from the playoffs this season.
“There needs to be a signal sent, and I think it’s appropriate,” UIL state executive committee chairman Mike Motheral said.
It came two days before teams across the state can begin playing games.
“It has been said time and time again, not only by the panel, but also the administration at Faith Academy that we recognize that the optics of this are terrible,” SEC committee member James Colbert Jr. said. “In my years of being in education and being a former coach and administrator, it is no accident when you have 18 students transfer to one program in one year. That doesn’t sit well with me. The lack of timeliness of getting documentation in is absolutely ridiculous.”
Attorney Tiger Hanner was representing Faith Family and claimed that no recruiting took place. But he said in his testimony that some of the transfers were likely for athletic purposes, which is a violation of UIL rules.
“The numbers, whether it’s 17, 18, 19, they’re shocking,” Hanner said. “We are talking about student-athletes that are some of the best basketball players in the country. To sit here and pretend like that some of these girls at least didn’t come to Faith Family for athletic purposes would be naive. There is no question. They saw a Coach like Coach Robinson and the staff she has assembled and they want to go be a part of that.
“But there is a system in Texas with the PAPF to deal with that. If they transferred for athletic purposes, they are going to be deemed ineligible. There is a process for all of that. We’re going to get to that, and many of those student-athletes are not going to be allowed to participate in varsity athletics. But the question here today is about recruiting. … If you go through all of what is claimed to be evidence, there is not one piece of anything that shows this coach contacted a kid, this coach recruited a kid, this coach enticed a kid. None of that exists.”
It was revealed at Wednesday’s hearing that 18 girls basketball players have transferred to Faith Family, not 13 as originally mentioned in the local 13-5A district executive committee meeting on Oct. 17. Testimony at the SEC meeting showed that the transfers only started to come in after Robinson, a four-time state champion, was hired away from national powerhouse DeSoto and started work at Faith Family on April 4.
There was testimony that previous athletic participation forms for five of the 18 transfers have still not been sent by Faith Family to the students’ previous schools. UIL athletic director Ray Zepeda asked Faith Family AD Marcus Canonico why the school didn’t respond to the UIL’s request in August for a list of the players in its girls basketball program after school had started, and Canonico said he didn’t have an answer.
“I find it amazing that you haven’t been able to comply,” Colbert said.
Canonico said his school had 15 girls basketball players on its roster last season and that only two of those are playing for Faith Family this season, and both will be on the JV. The state executive committee asked Canonico how Faith Family was able to convince Robinson — one of the most successful coaches in the state — to come to a program that had only a couple of athletes returning.
Canonico struggled to come up with an answer before finally saying, “We are good salesmen.”
The transfers included four players ranked among the top 100 recruits in the nation. Two of those — five-star junior forward Amari Byles and four-star junior combo guard Amayah “Sunshine” Garcia — played for Robinson at DeSoto the past two seasons and finished as the Class 6A state runner-up in 2023.
The other big-name players who transferred to Faith Family were four-star Alabama pledge Joy Egbuna from Mansfield Lake Ridge, four-star sophomore point guard Finley Chastain from national champion Montverde in Florida and sisters Gianna, Milania, Natalia and Nadia Jordan from Southlake Carroll. Freshman Kelenna Ozumba, an elite recruit in the Class of 2028 who already has an offer from Ole Miss, transferred to Faith Family instead of staying in Allen ISD to play for Allen High School.
There has not been a DEC meeting yet to determine the varsity eligibility of the Faith Family transfers for this season. If ruled eligible by the DEC, those students could still play for Faith Family, but the team wouldn’t be able to advance to the postseason.
One option for them is to return to their previous school, where they would become immediately eligible.
UIL rules state that a student who transfers for an impermissible reason is still eligible at the school where varsity eligibility was first established, without the need of a waiver. A student must reenroll in the school within 30 days of being found ineligible at the transfer school.
They could also transfer to a private school. But the TAPPS transfer deadline for the winter season was Tuesday, so they would have to appeal to the organization’s executive board.
Robinson, who won two state titles apiece at Fort Worth Dunbar and DeSoto, isn’t the first multi-time state championship coach to be suspended by the UIL. In 2019, former Duncanville girls basketball coach and eight-time state champion Cathy Self-Morgan was issued a three-year suspension from coaching after the UIL ruled that she was guilty of recruiting violations when five-star recruit and McDonald’s All-American Deja Kelly transferred from San Antonio Johnson to Duncanville.
This also isn’t the first time that a much publicized basketball program received a postseason ban. In October 2022, the UIL banned the 12-time state champion Duncanville girls from the playoffs for one season and suspended then-head coach LaJeanna Howard for the rest of that school year because of a recruiting violation.
At that same time, the UIL stripped the Duncanville boys basketball team of its 2022 6A state title after ruling it used an ineligible player, and it suspended head coach David Peavy for one year.
The UIL is cracking down on recruiting and transfer violations after saying this summer that as many as 15,000 athletes could transfer to Texas high schools this school year, either changing schools within the state or moving in from out of state.
In February, Andrew Cameron, who had been the offensive coordinator for five-time state champion Galena Park North Shore, was suspended from all UIL activities for three years after admitting he personally recruited players from other schools while head coach Willie Gaston was suspended for the first two district games of the 2024 season for negligence. In March, the UIL suspended former McAllen Rowe boys basketball coach Jose Yebra for three years for school violations involving recruiting after it was found that Yebra’s team played an ineligible player during the season.
On Oct. 17, the local 13-5A district executive committee found Faith Family and its coaches guilty of recruiting violations, a lack of transparency and withholding information regarding 13 transfers. Under UIL rules, a DEC does not have the authority to suspend coaches and can only issue a reprimand, so the DEC sent the matter on to the UIL.
Evidence was presented at that DEC meeting that accused Creel of having impermissible contact with Garcia and her parents at an AAU game and of giving her a bag with a Faith Family shirt and other school items. New DeSoto coach Jeffery Chatman, who replaced Robinson, told the DEC he had a photo of the encounter and passed his phone around for the members to see.
On Wednesday, Creel denied giving anything to a student who had not already enrolled at Faith Family.
Lincoln girls basketball coach Ashley Greer said at the DEC meeting that Jones reached out to one of his players on social media to get in contact with the athlete, who is still at Lincoln, about the upcoming season. Jones said in the SEC hearing that she was just reaching out on behalf of college coaches she knew who wanted to speak with the athlete.
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