Meet the Chatard football player who isn't allowed on field

September 26, 2010 by indystar | Staff


All Bishop Chatard’s Schuylar Hurd-Johnson wants to know is . . . Why can’t I play?

It is a high school football Friday night in Central Indiana, and Bishop Chatard senior Schuylar Hurd-Johnson stands on his team’s sideline as its plays at Howe High School, charting defensive plays and exhorting his teammates.

If there was any fairness in a life that has been relentlessly unjust for this young man, he would be out there with his friends, another 18-year-old senior playing his fourth and final year of high school football. He has made a remarkable journey so far, overcoming obstacles that seem almost impossible in the world’s richest country, and yet, the Indiana High School Athletic Association, with its rigid rules and dubious wisdom, has kicked him to the sideline.

“Football probably saved my life,” Hurd-Johnson said during a Thursday practice at Chatard. He continues to practice with the team despite the knowledge he can’t play. “It was the thing that kept me going. If I didn’t have football every day, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”

And now, for reasons Hurd-Johnson and his supporters can’t begin to fathom, it’s been taken away.

The story starts in a double-wide trailer home in Muncie.

Schuylar grew up a reasonably happy and secure kid, with a mother and two older brothers (Travis, the oldest, and Ryan, the middle child), although the father, Tony, commuted to Indianapolis for work and wasn’t around very much. Still, he had a parent, a support system, someone who could provide for him.

And then, in 2001, when Schuylar was 9, his mother, Phyllis, died from cancer. The boys were essentially alone, Travis (19), Ryan (14) and Schuylar fending for themselves, instant orphans.

The father? He was spiraling down, chased by his demons, both manic depression and drugs. He would come around once a week, then once a month, then once every few months, and finally, not at all. There was a grandmother in the neighborhood, but she was ill and couldn’t care for the boys. Neighbors would try to lend a hand, but it wasn’t much.

The boys lived in squalor. Meals were not expectations; they were luxuries. Before the age of 13, Schuylar had to learn to pay bills, on those rare occasions when friends or relatives gave him the money.

Despite all this, Schuylar got himself up every morning and went to school, then went to football practice. There was no parent to roust him out of bed; he simply did it because he knew it was right.

“I didn’t know where my father was. I didn’t know how to pay the bills. I didn’t know when or what I was going to eat; I was hungry a lot,” Schuylar said. “I just had so many things to worry about.”

Still, he had football.

He played for Muncie Central his freshman year, even though he was struggling at school.

He planned to play his sophomore year at Muncie Central, but his grades were poor — and understandably so. He was ruled academically ineligible. And there was no safety net to catch him

“The system let him down,” Chatard coach Vince Lorenzano said. “When you see a kid failing his classes, you reach out to the parents. If anybody had made that call, they would have learned about his situation.”

Schuylar kept working, though, and played for Muncie Central his junior year. His grades improved slightly despite his heartbreaking circumstances.

Life, though, kept kicking him in the teeth. The oldest brother, Travis, moved out, leaving the two younger ones on their own. Then, later that year, his brother, Ryan, had a mental breakdown. He spent time in a psychiatric ward.

Schuylar, at age 16, was completely alone.

Worse yet, the father had disappeared. Soon, the eviction notices began coming. It was becoming too much.

“I was about to give up,” Schuylar said.

And then, in the fall of 2008, three angels entered his life: A Muncie neighbor named Bea Foster became concerned and somehow tracked down Schuylar’s great uncle, Dr. Tom Wisler, a gynecologist in Indianapolis.

Wisler and Foster reached out to Schuylar’s uncle (his father’s estranged brother), Dave Johnson, who lives in Seattle.

They all agreed: “Somebody needed to rescue this young man,” Wisler said.

The wheels began to turn. It was time to save Schuylar’s precious life.
Poor living conditions

After Dave Johnson arrived in Indianapolis in November 2008, he immediately drove to Muncie. What he found shook him to his foundations.

“It’s difficult to put into words how bad it was,” Johnson said. "It was filthy. There were holes in the floor. This was the first week of November and it was cold, but there was no heat. No water. There was electricity, but only because the church paid some of the bills. There was no working toilet, no place to take a shower, no real food in the refrigerator.

“It just broke my heart.”

After long consideration, it was decided Schuylar would move in with Wisler, his great uncle, and his wife, Patsy. They are an older couple — he’s 72 and she is 69 — and they already had raised six children, who range in age from 30 to 44. But they were compelled to open their home and their hearts to one more.

Schuylar enrolled at Chatard, but was immediately behind academically — no surprise given his background. They got him lots of tutoring to help him catch up, and make up for those lost years.

“God gave him a good brain,” Wisler said. “He just needed some guidance and support.”

His life was taking shape now. He was being a kid, at long last.

“For the first time since my mom was alive, I was happy,” Schuylar said. “I felt safer. Rescued. Like a part of a family. I had a meal on the table anytime I wanted it. I had my own room and a clean bed. I started to realize, the way I was living, that’s not the way someone should live their life, but at the time, that’s all I knew.”

His junior year at Chatard, just the third year he’d played high school football, was a rousing success. Not only did the 6-1, 195-pounder play well at linebacker and tight end, but his grades kept improving. He became an honor student and a 21st Century Scholar.

“I could think clearer, like my mind was free,” Schuylar said. “I was pretty much worry free.”

There still was a dark cloud of uncertainty, though, and, as always, it involved his father. Nobody had heard from him for months. Schuylar kept harboring hopes that one day, there would be a great reunion and reconciliation.

Then, in April of last year, has father, Tony Johnson, was found dead in brush near a Northeastside street.

“I cried a lot that night,” Schuylar said.

The words soon began catching in his throat.

“Even though a father shouldn’t treat his sons the way he treated us, he’s still my father,” Schuylar said. “I still love him. I had very mixed feelings.”

He had lost his father now, but this time, he wasn’t left alone. He had the Wislers. He had Dave Johnson. He had some normalcy. And he had football, his senior year, his crowning glory.

Until the system let him down again.
Not eligible

One week before the start of the football season, Lorenzano, the Chatard coach, got the devastating news from the IHSAA: Schuylar was not eligible to play his senior season.

Despite his hardships, the powers-that-be determined he was a fifth-year senior. Never mind he was 18, the same age as all seniors. Never mind this had nothing to do with gaining some kind of competitive advantage. Never mind he had played only three years of high school football.

Lorenzano called Schuylar to his office. They talked, cried, hugged.

“The (eligibility) rule is in place for the right reasons,” Lorenzano said. "But the rule has to have the ability to identify hardships when they really, truly happen. . . . They’re saying, ‘We have to treat everybody exactly the same and enforce it across the board,’ but Schuylar isn’t like everybody else.

“You’re looking at a kid who lived through this situation . . . and he rose above it.

“When you rise above your circumstances like that, there’s supposed to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Well, where’s his?”

Blake Ress, the commissioner of the IHSAA, said there is a fundamental rule that says athletes have four consecutive years to finish their high school eligibility.

“I actually gave him hardship eligibility when he transferred to Chatard,” Ress said. “Ordinarily, you’re ineligible if you move and a parent doesn’t move to the new school district, but this was a different case. I told his people at the time, his eligibility was going to expire at the end of that (junior) season (at Chatard).”

Ress was asked, “Is there wiggle room? Considering the story, the circumstances?”

“No,” he answered. “We don’t do redshirt years in high school. Otherwise, a lot of parents would want their kids to stay in school an extra year for athletics. You don’t go to high school to linger.”

On virtually any issue, Schuylar is soft-spoken and respectful. But ask this question, and there’s a momentary flash of anger.

If you had the IHSAA in front of you right now, what would you tell them?

“If you (the IHSAA) do understand my situation, then you don’t care,” Schuylar said. “And if you don’t understand, you need to understand.”

He paused. “It’s wrong. I deserve to play.”

One more high school football Friday night. It’s all he asks.

Categories: Bob Kravitz, Sports