The IHSA’s statement seemed clear.

Illinois’ governing body for high school sports sanctioned Maine South on March 8 for the use of ineligible players during the 2022 football season. The Hawks forfeited all nine wins and were placed on probation through the end of the 2023-24 school year.

A week later, Maine Township High School District 207 informed head coach David Inserra, who has led the Hawks to four state championships and four more state title games since taking over the program in 2001, he would need to meet three conditions to keep his job.

Halfway through the 2023 season, Inserra remains the program’s leader.

The clarity, however, ends there.

A months-long investigation by Friday Night Drive yielded dozens of emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and led to multiple rounds of interviews with district officials.

Yet, there are still questions surrounding one of Illinois’ most successful programs. District officials have refused to explain what happened and who was responsible.

What happened with Maine South High School?

The subject line wasn’t ominous: Maine South Football Program.

Inserra received an email with official district letterhead from the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources, George Dagres, on the same day the IHSA announced its sanctions.

The district informed Inserra it had initiated an investigation into the Maine South football program and its findings could result in “the consideration and the imposition of disciplinary action ranging from a warning to termination from employment.”

In the email, Dagres requested that Inserra meet with district administration officials, let Inserra know he could bring a union representative if he wanted and offered Inserra a right to waive his 48-hour minimum notice requirement so they could meet before the period expired.

The purpose of the meeting: “to discuss these allegations with you and provide an opportunity for you to respond to these allegations.”

The investigation came after the district self-reported residency violations on the 2022 Maine South team. Multiple players violated IHSA By-Law 3.030 by participating with the program despite not residing in the school’s attendance area, according to the IHSA.

Maine South forfeited seven regular season wins along with two playoff victories. The IHSA also placed the program on probation through the end of the 2023-24 school year and notified it that future violations “may result in removal from the IHSA State Football Playoffs.”

District Superintendent Ken Wallace told Friday Night Drive that the district discovered the ineligible players after it hired a residency investigator in October 2022, who identified football players for residency investigations. The students who ultimately were found to be nonresidents, however, came as a result of anonymous tips, according to the district.

The district declined to comment on how many ineligible football players there were based on residency requirements and how many overall ineligible students there were in Maine South. It also declined to say if and how many students in total were expelled across the three high schools in the district — Maine South, Maine East and Maine West.

Who knew what remains a major question.

According to the district, the Maine South coaching staff was not aware, nor suspected, that there were any residency issues.

IHSA executive director Craig Anderson said in an interview that the strong sanctions were a result of someone within the program knowing about the issues and failing to inform administration officials.

“The information that we got was that there was some level of awareness and if they’re telling you something different then there might be some miscommunication there,” Anderson said. “From what I gathered, I felt like there was some level of awareness of what was happening there.”

After Friday Night Drive reached out to the district for clarification in light of Anderson’s comments, Anderson asked to retract his statement saying that he heard about the district’s suspicions during an off-the-record conversation. Anderson clarified that the sanctions were a result of Maine South using ineligible players.

The district also declined to specify whether this was primarily a football issue. When asked if other sports had ineligible students, the district said it would self-report like it did for football, but declined to say whether it self-reported for another sport. Anderson told Friday Night Drive the district only reported residency issues with football.

Anderson said he understands why the district has declined to share information that is primarily personal. According to Anderson, the IHSA’s main concern is that steps are being taken in order to avoid issues again.

“The individual participants in it, those individuals have some rights to have that information not disclosed,” Anderson said. “It would advance the story significantly if that was shared, but really, where I sit, it’s more important to acknowledge the infraction and know that steps are being taken to prevent it in the future. That’s the most important part for us.”

Inserra’s 3 conditions to keep his job

Inserra first met with district administration officials on March 10 to discuss “allegations from parents and community members about recruiting,” according to emails Friday Night Drive obtained in response to a FOIA request.

They also discussed allegations of “inappropriate communications that were directed toward some players during the 2022 season.”

Inserra met with the group again on March 14 before he agreed to three conditions to keep his job the next day, according to a document revealed in the FOIA request.

1. Longtime offensive coordinator Charlie Bliss could no longer be part of the coaching staff.
2. Parents, employees or others on the sidelines during football games and practices needed to be approved in advance by the Maine South administration.
3. Inserra needed to “end practices that caused us to be here now, especially the perception and appearance of recruitment of non-resident players such as those who were involved in the issues we faced this year.”

Despite numerous rounds of questioning from Friday Night Drive, there are still uncertainties about the district’s investigation and the three conditions set for Inserra to keep his role as head coach.

The district declined to say what kind of inappropriate communication allegedly was made toward students and who allegedly made the comments; what sort of practices Maine South football allegedly did that led to the perception of recruitment of non-resident players; whether the district considered firing Inserra and whether Inserra was open to the three conditions set for him to keep his role as head coach.

Inserra was not made available for comment for this story because the district handled all questions relating to the sanctions and investigation.

Bliss not allowed to coach

Maine South football’s Twitter account, which isn’t directly connected to the school, listed many of Bliss’ accomplishments when it announced his retirement at the beginning of May after 34 seasons with the program, 22 as offensive coordinator.

The tweet didn’t mention Bliss wasn’t allowed to come back as a coach.

The condition that Bliss could no longer be a coach at Maine South came after the district investigated “unprofessional and inappropriate” comments Bliss made on Nov. 18 in front of Dagres and another staff member, documents show.

On Nov. 30, Bliss met with Dagres and Mary Kalou, the district’s assistant superintendent for business/CSBO. They discussed the comments Bliss made that were deemed inappropriate. They concluded that Bliss violated board policy 5:20, which prohibits workplace harassment and recommended to the board that Bliss’ role as probationary security officer at Maine West be terminated.

Bliss asked if he could submit a letter of resignation, to which the administration agreed. He submitted his letter on Nov. 30 and the board accepted Bliss’ resignation at its Dec. 5 meeting. In Bliss’ resignation, he thanked Dagres for the opportunity to work in this position and said he “enjoyed and appreciated the opportunities I’ve had while working here.”

Bliss joined Loyola’s football staff this summer and was not made available to comment for this story.

District 207 declined to comment or elaborate on any details surrounding Bliss’ departure. It did say he was not involved in any recruitment of players.

Bliss is considered one of the best offensive coordinators in the state and was inducted into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association (IHSFCA) Hall of Fame in March. He helped develop players who went on to have strong careers after graduating from Maine South, including offensive lineman Peter Skoronski, who the Tennessee Titans drafted in the first round this past April.

He also developed quarterbacks who earned IHSFCA All-State honors, like Sean Price (2003), Tyler Knight (2005), Jimmy Coy (2006), Charlie Goro (2008) and Matt Alviti (2012).

Trying to solve a ‘major problem’

Both Wallace and Anderson acknowledged monitoring residency isn’t a new issue with a clear solution.

Wallace said the district has struggled with residency issues for a long time, pointing out that Chicago is on the east and south ends of the district’s border. According to Wallace, someone can present documents that make it appear a student is a legal resident, the district admits the student and then the district must investigate whether a student is a legal resident.

“This is not a District 207 story,” Wallace said. “It’s a much bigger story than that. This is, you know, there’s a lot of spotlight on this because it’s Maine South football but it’s the people that are focusing on that I think are missing the bigger picture here, residency is a major problem.”

According to the IHSA’s latest enrollment averages from the previous two school years, the district has an average of 6,170.5 students at all three high schools. Maine South averaged 2,382.5 students, Maine West had 1,954 and Maine East had 1,834.

According to the IHSA website, Maine South offers 29 IHSA-sanctioned sports while Maine West offers 27 and Maine East offers 25.

The district said it improved its residency proofing by hiring a full-time investigator. If there are any questions about a student’s residency, the district may require guardians to sign affidavits after an administrative procedure this spring.

A third-party system also provides a residency score on each family based upon the information parents or guardians provide. If a family doesn’t reach a certain threshold, the district looks into those families.

Wallace said he wants stronger laws to place less of a burden on districts to put large amounts of time and resources into verifying residencies. He said he’s planning on working to pass legislation that increases penalties on families who lie about their residency and educates parents to prevent future sanctioned seasons and expelled students.

“We are sending a clear message that if it happens, we are going to address it, and we’re going to address it as swiftly and surely as we can, and try to make sure that if we bring a case, we don’t bring a case that we don’t feel like we can support in a hearing,” Wallace said. “So we’re going to do our due diligence.”

Anderson is aware it’s tough for both school districts and the IHSA to make sure that every student on every team in the state lives where they say they live. He even admitted the the district did a much more thorough investigation than the IHSA could.

According to Anderson, it included hearings and private investigators checking where students went home.

“It’s a large task to try to believe and accomplish that in the entirety of our membership that all student-athletes are meeting this residence by-law requirement,” Anderson said. “But all we can continue to do is continue to communicate about it and work toward the goal of meeting that expectation.”

Despite the obstacles, Anderson said he wanted the message to be clear when the IHSA announced its sanctions on March 8. The IHSA felt there was enough evidence to warrant the loss of a season’s worth of wins and the placement of Maine South on probation this year.

Questions still surround Maine South, but Anderson said he felt programs and parents from across the state learned what will happen if they break the rules.

“The penalty needed to be significant because the program benefited from having these student-athletes that weren’t meeting the requirements,” Anderson said. “It is what it is. I felt like the penalty was proper for the infractions. As it turns out, the communication created related to it will bring a message to schools to be more on top of their student-athletes residence.”