Smith's Senior Season May be Held Up Over Paperwork
The news broke Sunday night that has caused a couple of days of panic in Arkansas.
The Arkansas Activities Association ruled Sunday the Razorbacks' 5-star commitment was ineligible to play his senior year of high school at North Little Rock.
North Little Rock Public Schools responded with a press release:
The first page of the school's response to the AAA declaring Nick Smith ineligible for his senior year.
North Little Rock School District
The first page of the school's response to the AAA declaring Nick Smith ineligible for his senior year.
North Little Rock School District
The last item in the list is the one that has many people scratching their heads. The "Changing Schools/Athletic Participation" (CSAP) form appears to be the one that few seem to be aware even existed.
"I had never heard of that before," said Nate Olson on Halftime Tuesday on ESPN Arkansas. He's covered Arkansas high school sports for over 20 years.
Smith's family had moved from Sylvan Hills earlier this year so he could play for the Charging Wildcats, one of the top basketball programs in Arkansas.
Now that's been delayed. After 24 hours of fact-finding some information started to surface on radio talk shows Tuesday.
Kevin McPherson, who is on the Pig Trail Nation television sportscast around the state weighed in with his opinions and what he's learned on The Morning Rush with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft on ESPN Arkansas:
And his family is not happy about it, according to what they were posting on social media:
When the news first broke Sunday evening about Smith being declared ineligible, nobody appeared too concerned.
Now that more information has become available it appears North Little Rock wanted clearance from the AAA before signing any paperwork and they didn't get it.
According to the rules, without the signed paperwork they can't declare Smith eligible but North Little Rock wants clearance to sign it.
How much any evidence presented by Little Rock Central and Sylvan Hills played in the AAA's decision isn't known right now.
Smith has been basically silent on the entire matter. That is probably the best thing for the player to do at this point.
The summary of all this right now is Smith Jr.'s involvement in working out at a gym in west Little Rock has been called into question as a potential recruiting violation to transfer from Sylvan Hills to neighboring North Little Rock.
Smith Jr. has been working out at that gym for over a decade.
None of this has affected his commitment to the Razorbacks for the 2022 class, which is the highest-rated group since they started putting an order to those.
Now he's just got to figure out what to do about his senior year.
Even the options aren't clear right now.
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