Buffalo Grove Bills on probation for incorrect player ages
A suburban youth football organization was placed on a two-year probation this week by its governing body after five players on a 6- to 8-year-old team were found to be older than their paperwork stated.
The entire roster of teams in the Buffalo Grove Bills Youth Football organization were sanctioned Tuesday by their parent league, The Chicagoland Youth Football League, or TCYFL.
But Geoff Meyer, the league president and co-founder, said after a thorough multiweek investigation, the league found no evidence that the errors were anything more than mistakes.
“One of the things we looked for was, is there any proof or anything that shows us there was intent,” Meyers said. “That we could not find.”
A league investigation found that over the last two years, five players' birth certificates indicated they were 9 years old, but the paperwork provided by the Buffalo Grove Bills to the league said they were 8.
Joey Weber, the president of the Buffalo Grove Bills, said Wednesday that some clerical errors were made by parents registering their children and some were made by the organization, specifically by parent-volunteers submitting paperwork to the league.
Weber, however, said his organization accepts the league's sanctions.
“We made a mistake, we got our punishment and we are fine with that,” Weber said Wednesday. “Our internal findings support the TCYFL's judgment of no deliberate wrongdoing and we have added several remedies for future cross-checking.”
League officials acknowledge the mistakes were not deliberate but said having older children on younger teams can compromise player safety and result in injuries.
The two-year probation means that if Buffalo Grove violates league rules again during that time, they can be hit with even tougher sanctions, up to and including expulsion from the league.
Along with probation, the Buffalo Grove program lost its voting rights in league affairs for one year.
TCYFL, formed in 1998, is the largest youth tackle football league in Illinois, with nearly 400 teams. Players range in age from 14 to under 6 and represent 40 suburbs, mostly North suburbs, but also some in southern Wisconsin.
On Tuesday, each of the 70 parking spaces behind the Ela Township Hall in Lake Zurich were filled with cars, SUVs and minivans, some decorated with team logo stickers. Inside, the room was packed with team representatives and parents.
TCYFL sorts players into one of six divisions based on a child's age and weight.
Dave Jacobs, the league vice president of health and safety, said it is legal for a small 9-year-old to play at the 6- to 8-year-old “Bantam” level — as long as they weigh less than 60 pounds.
Jacobs said because the league did not have a record of the players' weight at the beginning of the season, they could not say for certain whether any of five ineligible 9-year-olds could, in fact, have been eligible for Bantam play.
“Regardless, their stated age did not match their birth certificate, which is what made their rosters incorrect and is why they were punished,” Jacobs said.
Scott Stricker, a Crystal Lake Raiders representative to the TCYFL, said he believes more needs to be done to prevent bigger children from playing in a younger league, which besides the safety issue provides a competitive advantage.
“Buffalo Grove says it was a clerical error. I hope it was a clerical error, but certainly that needs to be corrected and remedies need to be put in place to make sure those clerical errors don't happen again,” Stricker said.
On Tuesday, after the executive board meeting, Meyer said one thing the league considered when deciding on the punishment was whether the leadership of the Buffalo Grove Bills took responsibility for the errors, which he feels they did not.
“What we preach and teach to our kids is to be responsible for our actions and take the consequences from our actions intentional or unintentional,” Meyer said.