Federal judge rejects claims that MGM mothers’ and sons’ constitutional rights were violated by the AHSAA

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

A federal judge has rejected the claims that the constitutional rights of two Mary G. Montgomery mothers and their sons were violated when the Alabama High School Athletic Association ruled them ineligible to play football in May.

U.S. District Judge Bill Lewis issued an order dated Oct. 23 to dismiss the assertions of Tameka Dale and Ashley Davis, the mothers of two MGM students who were declared permanently ineligible to play sports at the school for attending what the AHSAA characterized as an improper recruiting event in 2024 and 2025. In all, 21 players were declared permanently ineligible for attending such events during the nearly five years Zach Golson was the Vikings’ coach.

Lewis said in his ruling that he accepted Dale’s and Davis’ claims that nobody from MGM recruited their sons and that their sons had already decided to attend the school before attending the signing ceremonies but observed the players still had to abide by the AHSAA’s recruiting regulations. Those rules stipulate that no student or parent can come to a school on their own to inquire about participating in athletics.

Golson was placed on paid administrative leave on May 4 by the Mobile County Public School System two weeks before AHSAA Executive Director Heath Harmon issued sanctions against the school, including a year of restrictive probation, a one-year playoff ban and a one-year suspension for Golson.

Lewis also denied a request from Dale and Davis for a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction to restore their sons’ eligibility plus compensatory damages from the AHSAA for irreparably harming their sons’ futures.

Dale and Davis said their constitutional rights of free speech and equal protection and those of their sons were violated by the AHSAA, which found in May the students were connected to violations of recruiting rules for attending MGM freshman football signing ceremonies in 2024 and 2025. The lawsuit named Harmon, Mobile County Public School System Superintendent Chresal Threadgill and MGM Principal David Diaz as defendants.

In a 49-page ruling that the judge considered for three weeks after an evidentiary hearing on Oct. 5, Lewis granted the AHSAA’s request to dismiss the lawsuit due to a lack of standing, since the mothers and their sons — identified as T.D. and B.G. — are not members of the AHSAA. Lewis dismissed the students’ claims they were denied due process or had their First and 14^th Amendment rights of free speech and equal protection violated.

Lewis also granted a request from Threadgill and Diaz to dismiss charges made against them by Dale and Davis. Mobile County Public School System attorney K. Paul Carbo argued at the Oct. 5 hearing that Threadgill and Diaz should not be included in the lawsuit because the plaintiffs had not shown that those officials had violated their or their sons’ federal or state rights, Lewis wrote.

Lewis rejected all the claims in the lawsuit without prejudice, meaning they could be filed again. He also denied the AHSAA’s and Harmon’s motion for relief.

Dale and Davis said AHSAA rules that forbid them to speak to MGM officials about their sons joining the football team before they were enrolled there violated their constitutional rights. However, Lewis ruled that the AHSAA “has a legitimate interest in preventing recruiting and protecting fair competition. Limiting athletic communications with unenrolled, out-of-district prospective students, while allowing talk about academics, band and other programs, is rationally related to that interest because those programs do not raise the same risk of athletic recruiting.”

Lewis ruled that the facts alleged by Dale and Davis “do not plausibly show that the recruiting rule, as applied to the communications alleged, violates the First Amendment.”

Lewis also questioned the timing of the lawsuit, noting Dale offered no explanation for waiting until September to seek relief after her son was ruled ineligible in May and adding that Davis’ only explanation for waiting four months to file the lawsuit was because she was caught off guard by the AHSAA’s decision.

In the Oct. 5 hearing, the AHSAA’s attorneys established that Dale’s and Davis’ sons were not formally enrolled at MGM before attending the signing ceremonies in 2024 and 2025, although they had completed paperwork to transfer from Clark-Shaw Magnet School. Dale, Davis and Golson said no inducements were offered to their sons, nor were they invited to any of the ceremonies.

Lewis said a case that plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Kidd cited to support the claims of constitutional violations showed the opposite was true.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association against Brentwood Academy in 2001 and 2007, saying high school athletic associations can “ban direct, coercive athletic recruiting by coaches without violating the First Amendment.”

In that case, Brentwood was penalized by the TSSAA for sending letters and camp invitations to eight graders and sued the association. The Supreme Court found Brentwood was a state actor that was bound by the TSSAA’s rules.

The school argued later that punishing its coach for sending recruiting letters violated free speech but the Supreme Court unanimously rejected that claim.

“Given that Brentwood was a member school, it made a voluntary decision to join (the association) and to abide by its anti-recruiting rule,” Lewis’ order noted. The judge added that the Supreme Court ruled that “an athletic league’s interest in enforcing its rules (can) sometimes warrant curtailing the speech of its voluntary participants.”

Lewis also wrote that the Supreme Court “needed no empirical data to credit (the TSSAA’s) common-sense conclusion that hard-sell tactics directed at middle school students could lead to exploitation, distort competition between high school teams and foster an environment in which athletics are prized more highly than academics.”