Three Pennsylvania football players ruled ineligible for 2025 season

A Pennsylvania school district deliberated for nearly 10 hours on Thursday before ruling three of six student-athletes who are transferring into Bishop McCort Catholic High School ineligible for the 2025 football season, according to a Tribune-Democrat report. Three of the players set to join the Crushers transferred in from Greater Johnstown High School while the other three are from Windber Area High School.

“We got three kids through and we have the right to appeal on the other three, and you better believe we’re going to fight like hell for them to get their opportunity,” Bishop McCort Catholic principal and head football coach Tom Smith told the Tribune-Democrat. “This is America. It’s all about opportunity”

The three players that were ruled ineligible for the 2025 football season were Zymir and Julius Reed, from Greater Johnstown, and Dominick Chippie, who was at Windber Area last year. All three were granted eligibility to compete in track and field during the upcoming school year.

The committee reportedly referred to Article VI, Section 5 of the the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) handbook which states that if a student’s transfer is primarily motivated by athletic purposes, they would be ineligible in any sport they participated in during the year preceding the transfer. This rule is applied even if the student would otherwise be eligible at their new school. 

“Those are very tough decisions but we have a set of by-laws to follow and we’ve got to make sure we adhered to those rules,” District 6 Chairman Ralph Cecere said via the report. “Not only do we have to think about the young men or young ladies who come before our committee, but we have to think about all the other student athletes that these decisions will impact and how that can create an unfair balance competitively across all District 6. Hopefully (the rules are) being followed across the commonwealth for all PIAA districts.”

The Reed brothers played for their father, Antwuan, who served as the head coach at Greater Johnstown for the last three seasons. His contract was not renewed after the Trojans went 2-9 in 2024.

Julius was Greater Johnstown’s starting quarterback as a sophomore and completed 142-of-271 passes for 2,092 yards and 22 touchdowns last season. Zymir, a 2026 product, was the team’s top receiver and caught 59 passes for 928 yards and nine touchdowns.

Chippie played sparingly as a freshman for Windber Area and rushed for 27 yards and five tackles through seven games.