BELLEVUE, Wash. — Some Bellevue High School football coaches were dealt a hefty blow Friday.
An executive board composed of high school principals decided to increase penalties for the Bellevue Wolverine football program’s head and assistant coaches.
The Kingco league and Conference Principal Executive Board rendered the decision after the Bellevue School District appealed conference sanctions against the team.
The panel ruled that coaches connected to the cheating scandal should be banned from the field for four years. Kingco originally instituted a two-year sanction.
The panel lessened the severity of other sanctions, lifting a four-year ban on postseason play.
According to the panel, the ban was lifted because the principals said the conference doesn’t have the authority to ban postseason play.
An investigation by the school district earlier this year said that coaches and boosters cheated by recruiting players and paying them to attend an easy alternative high school, leaving them eligible to play.
The investigation also found that the team’s head coach, Butch Goncharoff, was inappropriately paid by the booster club. Goncharoff denied the allegations.
The board also said it reduced sanctions to “lessen the impact on student athletes”.
The school district placed Goncharoff on administrative leave earlier this week, deviating from its initial plan to fire the coach.