Mil’Von James is due back Friday as Inglewood High’s football coach after a two-game district suspension for using two ineligible players in an Aug. 28 game. An LA Times commentary urges the Southern Section to act to protect its credibility.
Video obtained by The Times shows both players in Inglewood’s game in Austin. The commentary says they were listed on the Southern Section’s transfer portal but had not been cleared, and that James appears to have knowingly played them; their names and jersey numbers were absent from Inglewood’s MaxPreps roster. James was fired at Hawkins in 2016 after ineligible players were discovered; Hawkins forfeited all its games and finished 0-13. The City Section later adopted a pregame roster-exchange rule known as the “Hawkins rule.”
Under the Southern Section’s Blue Book rule 500.5, a school that knowingly or unknowingly violates the rule may be suspended from section membership; the section cannot discipline coaches or control school personnel. Spokesman Thom Simmons declined comment and declined to make commissioner Mike West available. The commentary cites Long Beach Unified’s one-year suspension of a Long Beach Poly basketball coach in 2014 for using an ineligible player and urges an Executive Committee investigation. The Section Council was scheduled to meet Thursday.
