martinez and fernandez not gone

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SoCalHoops High School News

Martinez & Fernandez Not Going
To Philly. . . At Least Not Yet--(Mar. 27, 2000)

Jack Martinez (left) & Tyson Chandler (right) at the 2000 Dream Classic. Photo courtesy of UltraStudentAthletes.com ŠLarry Gray

This past weekend, Matt Borrello, who writes for Bob Gibbons' All-Star Report, one of the Rival.net sites, floated a story that Jack Martinez (6'-9" Jr. PF) and Amaury Fernandez (6'-9" Jr. PF) had left Artesia High School and would be checking in at Philadelphia's Lutheran High. The story was also carried on other Rival.net sites with the headline "Transfer Back East" (although the headline also read on various sites "Martinez Out At Artesia"). It appears that such reports though are premature.

Here are some of the pertinent excerpts from Borrello's story:

"Martinez and Fernandez, who both hail from Dominican Republic, were forced to leave Artesia High School in Lakewood, CA due to immigration paper work not being not being filled out properly.. . . "I have spoken to both Apolinar and Jack about the situation back in California, and from what they told me their paper work was not filled out properly when they arrived in California and that hurt there [sic] eligibility. Either way we feel confident that we can take care of the proper paper work that needs to get done to let them stay in the United States and play next year," said Daryl Schofield, athletic director at Lutheran Christian . . . Martinez, who turned 18 in October, is also reportedly in his tenth semester of high school making him ineligible to play in most states. At this time it is unknown whether Fernandez is also overaged." [The entire story can be found here.]

Setting aside that "Lutheran Christian" is really "Lutheran" High School [there is no "Lutheran Christian" in Philadelphia], it also appears that Martinez and Fernandez will not be transferring there, at least not in the foreseeable future. Schofield also told us this morning that he had not spoken with either Amaury or Jack personally, nor had he spoken with Wayne Merino, the coach at Artesia.

Over the weekend, we tried to find out what was happening without much success. But this morning, we Philly and spoke with the Lutheran Admissions Office, and they confirmed that neither Jack nor Amaury have enrolled at the school. The admissions officer we spoke with had never heard of the two and said, "We do not have anyone by those names enrolled."

We then managed to catch up with Darryl Schofield, Lutheran Athletic Director, who told us that neither Jack nor Amaury will be attending the school. "I had been reading about these two players on the internet, and I told Matt Borrello that we might be interested in having them attend, but it was no more than a general expression of interest on our part to help two players out of a situation where they weren't going to be allowed to play with their high school, " Schofield told SoCalHoops. "I haven't actually spoken with either of them, and I haven't been able to reach their high school coach either."

Amaury Fernandez
Photo courtesy of UltraStudentAthletes.com ŠLarry Gray

"Lutheran is a high school which accepts 5th year seniors and post-grad players, and we work with guys who need to either their test scores or work on their core courses. We play in almost all the big-time prep school tournaments that take place in the Northern Hemisphere," Schofield said, "and we also have schools like Hargrave Military Academy, and MCI on our schedule. We play college JV teams and JC's, and we provide a very competitive environment. I personally board many of the students, and we run an excellent program. The school is located in West Philly, right next to Overbrook High School, the same school Wilt Chamberlain attended."

"I've already told Matt Borrello that they aren't going to be attending Lutheran," Schofield said. " It was just an idea on my part, and I thought that they might also be coming to Philly for the "Brotherly Love Classic" [an all-star game] that we host here, but that's been postponed for a while."

"Someone suggested to me that I talk with their high school coach, and I tried to reach Wayne Merino by phone to talk about bringing them here," Schofield said, "but I've been unable to reach him. I really had no idea what the problem was with the guys, or the extent of any problems they might be having with the INS. I really still don't know what the problem is, but we're a school that helps out players in special circumstances so I thought we might be able to help them out," Schofield said.

"We've worked with other California players in the past, and our tuition is relative inexpensive for a prep school; we only charge $7,000 for tuition, room and board, and this seemed like something we might have been able to help with," Schofield explained. "We've worked with a lot of California players in the past. For example, last summer we worked with Scotty Stern at Fairfax, and we were the one's that got Greg Jefferson [formerly of Fairfax] the scholarship to Temple, even though Greg attended Redemption [Christian Academy in New York]. So this just seemed like something where we might have been able to help these two players out," Schofield said.

Borrello's report also appears to be incorrect when looking at the situation from a pure "eligibility" point of view: Martinez is not "overaged." For participation in CIF athletics a player can be as old as 19 by June 15 of his junior year, which literally means that a player who turns 19 on June 16 of his junior year can participate in CIF athletics, and he can be 20 years old the day he graduates (assuming graduation would take place after June 15 the following year). The issue with the Artesia players is not whether they are "overaged", but whether they have exhausted eligibility by playing more than 8 consecutive semesters since entering the 9th grade. Thus far only Martinez has had this issue raised and no public allegations of ineligibility on the part of Fernandez have surfaced.