Illinois Youth Football Team Reinstated After Gifted 13-Year-Old Player Enrolls Into High School Causing Team’s Suspension

An entire Illinois youth football team was suspended from playoff contingency after one of its players signed up for high school for his academic abilities. But now a compromise has been reached.

Thirteen-year-old Tremayne Gandy Jr. was at the center of the issue that caused league officials to suspend his entire Glenwood Jaguars football team, according to the Bleacher Report.

“Here’s a young man that is 13 years old doing a 10th-grade education and he is being penalized,” team president Gary Richardson told the outlet. “Not just him, but the whole program is being penalized.”

“It’s very unfortunate,” Richardson told Patch on Monday night regarding the entire situation. “These kids are still out there playing football when they realized that they were really playing for nothing, you know? It’s very detrimental. My thing was, ‘What am I telling this 8-year-old or this 7-year-old about education in football?’ I think the league looked at it as just some rule being broken and as an unfortunate situation.”

Since the suspension caused an uproar after some 200 students were affected, the league has since reached a compromise that will allow the Cougars’ younger players to play. Gandy, Jr. unfortunately will be excluded from play.

His grandmother, Sylvia Gandy, said in reports that they didn’t believe that moving him two years ahead academically, as a now high school sophomore, would impact his youth football league status as a 13-year-old. Although, the Southwest Midget Football League prohibits high schoolers from playing.

“He was always a bright child. He started reading at the age of 2,” Sylvia said.

President Lenny Rhein of the Southwest Midget Football League issued a response stating the league’s insurance policy doesn’t cover registered high school students, regardless of age.

Tremayne Gandy Sr. wasn’t in favor of the decision, as it directly impacts the entire midget team, which now has to suffer playoff disqualification because of it.

“It’s been pretty upsetting for a lot of the kids,” said Gandy Jr. said.

As for Gandy Jr., who has played for the Glenwood Jaguars since the age of five, he must now consider playing on the high school level.

He has expressed dreams of attending Michigan University as a student-athlete to play football and study meteorology, aerospace, or astronomy.