Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:02 PM

Red Lion Christian asks for DIAA reinstatement

DOVER, Del. - Less than a year after asking the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association for special treatment so it could build a nationally powerful high school football program, officials from Red Lion Christian Academy apologized Thursday to the DIAA's board of directors and the state's athletic directors and asked to be reinstated to full membership in the state organization.

The board took no official action, but did agree to form a committee to collaborate with Red Lion Christian in working through several issues that would need to be resolved before full membership could be considered.

In July, the DIAA board voted 10-2 with one abstention to approve Red Lion's request for associate membership status, which allows schools to bypass certain DIAA rules. In Red Lion's case, the school was allowed to award athletic scholarships in football and boys basketball, conduct spring football practice, begin preseason football practice about two weeks earlier than full DIAA schools, and play up to 13 games in football and 30 games in boys basketball. Red Lion remained a full DIAA member in all other sports.

But Red Lion Christian has undergone a major shift in priorities. The 30-year-old school is nearly $6 million in debt, in part due to falling enrollment, the recession and controversy over its athletic pursuits. In November, members of Glasgow Reformed Presbyterian Church voted to support the acquisition of Red Lion Christian.

GRPC assumed management of the school Dec. 1, and has already made sweeping changes. On Thursday, Dr. Chuck L. Betters, associate pastor at GRPC and part of the new management team at Red Lion, said the entire football coaching staff has been let go. It was announced earlier that David Needs, a veteran of Delaware high school football, is the school's new coach.

"It quickly became apparent that the football program was not aligned where we wanted to go," Betters said Thursday. "And so there has been kind of a parting of the ways as it pertains to the old football regime."

The school's varsity football program went 8-1 in 2008, 8-3 with a first-round loss in the Division II state playoffs in 2009 and 7-3 in 2010. The Lions were 5-5 last season, playing only out-of-state teams and traveling to Ohio, Florida, Maryland and New Jersey.

"We want football to be less of a priority at the school," Betters said. "We think there are things in life that are more important than football. Football is a great sport, but it's not capable of teaching a young man everything he needs to know about life."

Much of the controversy surrounding Red Lion football has centered on David Sills IV, father of David Sills, the Lions' highly touted freshman quarterback. The elder Sills played major roles in the founding of the FOCAS Foundation (Financially Obedient Christians Assisting Students), a privately funded financial aid program that provides assistance to many of Red Lion's football players, and the F.L.A.S.H. (Faithful Leaders Always Serving Him) Training program, which is housed in an on-campus facility built by Sills' construction company. Athletes from Red Lion and other schools have participated in the training program, which has led some to accuse Red Lion coaches and boosters of using the program to recruit outside athletes to attend Red Lion.

On Thursday, Betters said the people who operate F.L.A.S.H. have been asked to leave. He also said Red Lion will no longer be associated with FOCAS. Sills could not be reached for comment.

"The benefactors of the FOCAS and F.L.A.S.H. programs are no longer benefactors of the school," Betters said. "We have no relationship moving forward with FOCAS. We have dissolved that relationship."

Of the training program, Betters said, "We gave them three weeks to be out, and that three weeks is coming up here soon. Our intention is that F.L.A.S.H. is out, that the building is used as training for Red Lion athletes only."

Betters expects those decisions to dramatically alter the makeup of the football program. He believes as many as 60 players could leave the school after today, the final marking period of the first semester.

"We have been told by multiple sources that [today] will be the last day of school for a large number, if not the overwhelming majority, of the FOCAS young men who were playing football," Betters said. "We don't know what our football team is going to look like next year. We've been told that 60 kids are going to be leaving the school, and these are mostly the football players. So we may have a JV team, we may have a varsity team. At this point, what matters to us is that we want to be in full compliance and we want to move forward."

If many football players were to leave Red Lion, some board members expressed concern over where the athletes may attempt to transfer. Some raised objections to allowing players who had received athletic scholarships to resume playing at any DIAA school.

"I would be hard-pressed to vote for one, much less 60," said board member Robert W. Long, assistant principal at Sussex Central Middle School. "Not if they went on scholarship. If it were up to me, I'd let them know now. I can't even fathom us thinking we would give them a blanket waiver. They and their parents made a decision to accept a scholarship."

Betters stressed that moving forward, Red Lion wants to play football against Delaware teams.

"We would love to be back in competition with local schools," Betters said. "We're submitted to whatever DIAA wants us to do."

Red Lion athletics director Ken Howard said he has not scheduled any football games for next season. But after speaking with fellow athletics directors Thursday morning, he believes Red Lion could begin to schedule Delaware teams again next fall as long as the DIAA approves.

DIAA executive director Kevin Charles said that while many issues must be resolved, he admired the apologetic tone of the Red Lion representatives.

"I really appreciated that they came forward to the group and did that," Charles said. "I applaud what they did. I think it's a huge step in the right direction.

"My assessment was the board was extremely receptive to what they had to say," Charles added. "The board is extremely receptive to the idea of getting them back as a full member. We would all like to get past this whole issue that we've been dealing with for a couple of years, and get back to the healing process. I call it a family, one big family. And that family is not complete without Red Lion as a full member school."

Betters said the reorganization has trimmed Red Lion's budget and put the school back on a path to solvency, but much work remains to be done. After the meeting, Betters said $732,000 has already been cut from the school's operating budget. Some jobs were eliminated, but no programs have been sacrificed.

"We hope that you will help us save this school," Betters told the board. "We're in a fight to save this school. We've seen great things happen, and we see light at the end of the tunnel. We think the school will be saved. But it would be a great help to us to be able to come back into the DIAA in full membership."