Anonymity has a name, and its name isn’t Bryan Hansel.
It was reported Friday afternoon by WCBC Radio that Fort Hill football may be required to forfeit their six wins — up to that point — due to an ineligible player.
Hours later, the Times-News reported with a statement by the Allegany County Board of Education that the Sentinels would be looking at forfeiting five wins because the player in question didn’t play in a 42-7 season-opening victory.
The report states that Allegany County Public Schools determined that not only did the player in question not live in Allegany County, but also didn’t live in the state of Maryland, and the information provided to the Fort Hill administration contained fraudulent information.
The press release also stated that Fort Hill High School received the anonymous report on Tuesday.
Anonymity exists for a reason, but that did not stop the internet from speculating wildly.
Many of those on the red side of town didn’t look too far for their Public Enemy No. 1, settling on Allegany head coach Bryan Hansel.
That rumor, to me, never made an iota of sense from the start.
Regardless, it didn’t stop Hansel’s name from being publicly dragged through the mud in the 20-or-so hours leading into the big game.
Of all the thoughts I had about the rumors — the main one being: Why in the world would Allegany be the anonymous source? — the one that I couldn’t get out of my head as Homecoming was about to kick off was that Hansel deserved to have the opportunity to publicly clear his name.
Hansel was given — and took — that opportunity following his team’s 39-0 Homecoming loss.
“Look at how that process played out, right?” Hansel told me following the game. “That whole thing, whatever may have come from it, appeal or not. Allegany’s the only team that gained nothing from it. We didn’t gain a win. They didn’t forfeit Homecoming.”
Had the report not been made, Fort Hill would be the No. 1 seed in Class 1A West. Mountain Ridge would have been the 2-seed and Clear Spring No. 3, while Allegany would’ve hosted a rematch from last week with Northern, a game the Campers won 34-23.
Instead:
• Mountain Ridge moves to the top seed and gets a bye after Hancock opted out of the playoffs.
• Clear Spring becomes the No. 2 seed and, with a win, hosts a second-round regional playoff game instead of likely going on the road in round two.
• Northern moves up to the No. 4 seed and, instead of hitting the road and heading to Greenway in the first round, gets to host cross-county rival Southern, who moved up to No. 5, in the first regional round. The Huskies also, with a win, would play in the second round at Mountain Ridge, who edged past Northern in overtime three weeks ago. Prior to the report being made, a first-round win by Northern would’ve resulted in a return trip to Greenway to face Fort Hill.
• Smithsburg, rather than making the hour-and-15-minute drive to Greenway to face a Fort Hill team that won 61-6 two weeks ago in Smithsburg, gets to travel a half-hour west out Interstate 70 to play Clear Spring in the opening round.
• Allegany slides up to the No. 3 seed and, one week after facing an already-ticked-off Fort Hill team at Homecoming, gets to face that still-ticked-off Sentinel team in the opening round of the playoffs.
With all of that presented, I fail to see how, or why, Allegany — specifically Bryan Hansel — would be the anonymous source, with literally nothing to gain.
Fort Hill, so long as it has this longstanding Homecoming win streak, will never need any extra motivation heading into this game. No Fort Hill player wants to be part of the team that loses to their crosstown rival at Homecoming for the first time since 2007.
So let’s put ourselves in Bryan Hansel’s shoes.
Our team is on the upswing after a 1-4 start, winners of three straight, all by multiple scores.
Things are good, and we’re heading into Homecoming with a nice head of steam.
You know what the next logical step is? Let’s derail it all by reporting Fort Hill for an ineligible player, giving them added motivation heading into the big game, and then open our playoffs with that same Fort Hill team.
Just last year, C.H. Flowers in Prince George’s County was eliminated from the playoffs after an opening-round win because of using an ineligible player, who had been with the team the entire season.
Again, we’re in Bryan Hansel’s shoes. We allegedly have this information sitting in our back pocket of Fort Hill playing with an ineligible player, and we have the knowledge of what happened at Flowers last year because it was statewide news.
So, let’s report this before Homecoming, rather than holding on to it until Fort Hill won a playoff game?
I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it.
“We had nothing to do with it,” Hansel said. “I don’t dabble in that stuff. I stay away from it. I know people think it was us.
“I can tell you that for 100%, because just look at, we’d be better off seeing how this game played out and hope we get a two- or three-(seed) maybe, right? And then we can get out of the region and see (Fort Hill) in Annapolis or something like that, maybe. Now we get back-to-back weeks of, we played Northern, Fort Hill, Fort Hill. We got the end of that stick.”
After Fort Hill received the report on Tuesday, Hansel didn’t hear about it until the same time many of us did: when WCBC’s Garrett Eagan shared the story on Facebook.
“We heard about it sitting in a cafeteria on Friday, eating Martin’s chicken, and Garrett Eagan broke it on Facebook,” Hansel said. “It was like, ‘Holy , what is going on?’”
I expected Fort Hill to use this as motivation heading into Homecoming, especially considering it still isn’t public knowledge who made the anonymous tip.
What I wasn’t expecting to see was the jersey of the ineligible player being carried out to the field as the Sentinels ran out of the inflatable helmet.
But, fair enough. Kids are kids. And besides, the ineligible player was their teammate for most of this season and their friend. I can’t deny that I wouldn’t have felt the same way if a similar situation occurred while I played soccer at Mountain Ridge in the late 2000s. There’s a bond between teammates.
“That’s their guy,” Fort Hill head coach Zack Alkire said when asked about the ineligible player’s jersey being carried out.
“I mean, that kid played the whole season,” Hansel said. “I feel bad for the kid. He doesn’t get to play in this game and get to experience this with his teammates.”
The jersey of the ineligible player then sat draped over the back of the Fort Hill bench between two other jerseys: the one of Saiquan Jenkins, a Fort Hill player who was stabbed and killed just off-campus about 48 hours prior to the 2021 Homecoming game, and the other a youth football jersey belonging to Noah House, whose sister, Haley, died in 2014 following a courageous battle with cancer.
Many Fort Hill players sported undershirts reading “FREE 88” and “88” stickers were displayed on the helmets of the Fort Hill players.
“The MPSSAA has a process,” Alkire said. “We’re following it, and we’re going to do everything we can to protect our team.”
It is not yet official that Fort Hill will be forfeiting games, but the playoff seeding takes place on Monday at 4:30 p.m. Fort Hill is appealing the imposed penalty and will receive a hearing before the MPSSAA Appeals Committee.
Here’s to hoping we, and the Sentinels, don’t have to wait until 4:25 p.m. Monday to hear a decision.