LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Micah Feller has competed on the varsity wrestling team all four years at Shadow Ridge High School.
"This year is the first year I qualified for the state tournament,” Micah said. “It’s been a goal of mine the entire time at Shadow Ridge to try and make it to state."
However, Feller’s final season was cut short. Here's how.
"When I found out, it was really shocking,” Feller said.
The senior attends school at West Tech, which is a magnet school without sports, therefore Feller has to wrestle at his zone school, Shadow Ridge. While he has maintained over a 4.0 GPA, Feller temporarily had an F in a college-level English course.
"I thought that I had done the things I had been asked of,” Micah said.
Micah took responsibility and improved his grade, believing once it was updated on Infinite Campus, a student information system, he would be cleared to compete. During the time of waiting for his grade to update, Micah thought all he needed was email confirmation from his teacher.
"I had a meeting with an athletic director and he told me that if I can get an email that stated that I was cleared to wrestle, then I would be able to go to state,” Feller said. “That wasn't the case.”
The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association rules give students a week to fix failing grades after their three-week grade check. However according to Micah, he was not told at the beginning of the week, but rather Friday, giving him only a couple days to get his grade updated in Infinite Campus.
Micah's parents say they were not told that Micah was ineligible until the night before the state championship and were told coaches only have to inform the student.
"It was shock really,” Micah's father, Johann said. “He had already qualified for the state championship.”
Micah admitted that he could have done more, but he and his family hope sharing their story with Channel 13 will prevent this from happening again.
"Sports is a good part of growing up as a kid,” Micah’s mother, Yumi said. “But it's also a partnership between the coach and the families, we're there to support them.”
The Fellers are hoping for stronger and clearer policies.
“The policy regarding communication between the school and parents,” Johann said. “If there's any type of question or issue regarding eligibility, the moment that they pull grades and realize that a student-athlete is academically ineligible, then why wait five days to notify the student and then not notify the parent at all, especially when the parents are having face-to-face interactions with the coach during that probationary period."
"You're varsity in a sport, you've been doing it your entire time in high school, it [the state championship] is in your grasp, you're able to go, but you can't because of a situation like this,” Micah said. "I really hope that students don't have to deal with a situation like this in the first place.”
