Mar 19, 2013 3 min read

The WPIAL Board of Control made its rulings on transfers Patrick Frey and Toni Spossey public this morning.

Frey, a football and baseball player who transferred from Trinity to McGuffey on Feb. 27, has been ruled eligible to participate in all sports after the 16-person board decided “the transfer to McGuffey was not, in any way, motivated by an athletic purpose based on the information shared,” WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley said.

Spossey must sit out a year of softball, per the board’s finding that her transfer from Trinity to Chartiers-Houston was at least partially motivated by athletic intent, O’Malley said. She’s eligible to participate in all other sports and would be able to play softball again starting Jan. 22, 2014 – one year from her date of transfer.

Both hearings took place at the WPIAL offices in Green Tree yesterday, Spossey’s lasting around 45 minutes, Frey’s close to an hour.

Decisions on both cases were made last night, though the league would not release any information until this morning.

Reached at his office Tuesday morning, Trinity principal Don Snoke, who was present for both hearings on Monday, said he had not heard either verdict and referred all media inquiries to superintendent Paul Kasunich, who declined to comment.

Caroline Frey, Patrick’s mother, was waiting on a call from McGuffey principal Mark Bonus and had not heard the ruling when reached at home Tuesday morning.

“I just want Patrick to be able to do what Patrick wants to do,” Caroline Frey said. “That’s really the bottom line here.”

McGuffey principal Mark Bonus declined comment and referred all media inquiries to the school’s superintendent, Beverly Arbore, who has not returned a message.

A message left with Chartiers-Houston principal Phil Mary has also not been returned.

Both hearings were closed to the media, per the parents’ request, and O’Malley directed any specific comment on the hearings to the individual parties and schools.

Frey’s father, Patrick Sr., had previously expressed a desire to enroll his son in McGuffey’s vocational agricultural program.

The decisions can be appealed to the PIAA, though O’Malley said that may not be all that likely.

“In my tenure here, the only appeals that have ever gone are the ones that were denied,” O’Malley said, talking about instances where a student’s athletic eligibility was denied entirely. “Nobody from the sending school, in my tenure, has ever requested an appeal for that.”