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Fact - Pinewood coach was forced to resign by SCISA, after they created some Bogus rule specifically targeting Pinewood. Can someone shed some light on this rule? Can a SCISA rep help clear up this issue finally?


What is unfortunate is that the young men at Pinewood were really looking forward to another run at the state championship with coach Birchwood.

The state cup this year has no real zest about it. It seems everything was put in place for Cardinal Newman or some upstate school to win this year. Not taking anything away from the hard work of the Cardinal Newman staff and players

What would have been nice to see would be Coach Birchwood defend his title against a Cardinal Newman team that is much improved and is coached by Will Eudy.

Wishing both teams all the best in the finals. May the best team win and provide some really great entertainment for the many fans.



Here is the new "Jason Birchwood Rule" from the SCISA Blue Book:

Coaching Out-of-School Teams (Club, Travel, AAU…) August 2, 2010 - May 2011
It shall be considered a violation if a coach (any coach on your school staff; paid or volunteer), coaches an out-of-school team that has more than 3 students from the coach‘s school. It is also a violation if one of your coaches practices more 3 players from your school at the same time even though they are on different teams.

Notice two things: It refers to "students" rather than "players" and it complete exempts summer travel baseball. If the rule had simply used "players" instead of "students," Birchwood would be leading the Panthers onto the pitch in the morning.

SCISA knew that Birchwood coached a girls club team with more than three Pinewood students and - voila - no more Birchwood. I suppose he could have given up his day job coaching club ball and stayed at Pinewood for his paltry stipend - but SCISA knew he wasn't going to that. They were so anxious to lower the level of competition in SCISA that they instituted a poorly-drafted rule that read literally will prevent a volunteer assistant JV Boys coach from coaching his daughter and more than a couple of her classmates on a U6 micro team.

Believe me, let Cardinal Newman win a championship or two and this "let's dumb down our coaching so maybe our lousy schools might have a chance" crowd at SCISA will pass a rule to run off Coach Eudy as well. Eventually, the "real" schools in SCISA - Porter, Pinewood, Hammond, Heathwood, Cardinal Newman, Hilton Head Prep, etc. - will get fed up with this "let's dumb'em down like us" crowd and either demand leadership change in SCISA or they will go their own way.