Colgate Freshman Loses a Year of Eligibility Over Filling in for Some Church "Old Man" League Games

The NCAA has finally brought the hammer down on all the corruption that has plagued amateur sports. Nathan Harries, a freshman at Colgate, who played at Centennial High School in Georgia, has been stripped of a season of eligibility: an entire season.

The reason for the season: Harries filled in for three games this summer in a relative’s church league. He swapped sweat with the old guy who wears the knee brace and will call a foul on every one of his missed shots. You know the guy.

Harries had taken two years off to go on to serve a Mormon mission in North Carolina, before moving on to college. The league is described as an “old man’s league”, with most players in their thirties and one team made up of fifty year olds. There are referees for the games, but the uniforms were all over the place. Harries filled in for a friend’s team that was down to four players because of absences, and showed up in an old high school jersey without numbers, playing two games in one night.

The NCAA denied Colgate’s request for a waiver over the church league games. The guess here is that will change soon.

[photo Atlanta Journal-Constitution]