WFAA Questions Southlake QB’s Eligibility

Brett Shipp actually drove to Oklahoma and followed the father  of Southlake-Carroll quarterback Daxx Garman around. He saw him working. He saw him taking the boat to the lake. He saw him going to their Oklahoma home. All of this, Shipp asserts, makes it pretty certain that the Garman family had no intention of living in their Southlake rental home past Daxx’s senior year.

In other words, he came here just to play football, something he wasn’t allowed to do in Oklahoma after skirting the residency rules there, something that also skirts the UIL rules here. Oklahoma’s high school sports governing body ruled he was ineligible to play for his senior year, and made the team he played for – phenomenally, by all accounts – forfeit several games, including a district title.

But I do have questions about this – because I do know Southlake Carroll is not the only school in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to be accused of recruiting, or turning a blind eye to discrepancies in residency. Several years ago, when I worked in Fannin County, a 2A school in Grayson County was accused of luring two prime running back candidates from a fellow 2A school down the road, by offering a relative a nice new rent house in that town, and a reduced price on that rent, to say those two kids lived with her now. When I worked in Prosper, the rumor was a steady drumbeat that two neighboring districts recruited all the time. So why this particular fish in the barrel?

And how fair, exactly, is it that the UIL requires the family be fully divested of their former house – in this economy? Many people end up moving to one area with a home on the market still, chosing to rent while the old abode sells. They also may leave furnishings behind because vacant homes are harder to sell. Don’t get me wrong – I do find it suspicious that the Garman family had all their personal effects still there, and it wasn’t listed as for sale, allegedly, until Shipp asked about it.