We want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone that rallied around Rue in his time of need. We didn’t get the outcome we had hoped for yesterday at the Emergency Appeal, but Rue will continue to be that shining light we all know! He felt your love, messages and prayers, he really did! We talked openly about it, and every time we would mention it, he would always get that smile we all know and love. Just wanted everyone to know that it helped him immensely in a time when everyone was busy with family, you all took it upon yourself to help, which makes you amazing in our book!
We needed a miracle and someone to take a stand for Rue yesterday and unfortunately, we got neither. There were many people along the way in this fight for Rue but in the end, the people that made those decisions weren’t. Therein lies the crappy part of life, you may do everything that is asked of you the right way and still fail. With LHS midway through the season at this point, there isn’t much from a timing standpoint to do, so now the work begins on making this worthwhile for Rue’s pain/suffering and to not allowing another Missouri child to go through this when their parents or even the child are only trying to do what is best for them.
MSHSAA’s power comes from one thing, a statement that says, 9th-12th grade transfer students shall be ineligible to participate in varsity sports during the first 365 days of such student’s enrollment in the new district. Open enrollment has been on the ballot and approved but just not implemented yet, so the bill to fix this isn't far. MSHSAA gets much of its money from its member schools and therefore in a roundabout way your tax money as a resident of the state of Missouri. This power isn’t there’s to have and it shouldn’t be regulated by a Board that is hand-picked by that same group and cultivated through a system of the buddy network that has existed for too long. Self-government isn’t allowed in any other area of our system, but this one seems to still exist only because it hides cowardly behind the member schools and lives off the money that all of us pay to have our children educated. The last time this group was even audited by the state was 2018/2019 (they had over $5mm in their Balance Sheet at that time), this cannot continue, and it will resonate with all of them (hopefully) with the name Rue Wells beside it.
Simple solution, this governing power can simply be transferred to the taxpayer elected school boards of the incoming transfer school and all of this goes away. MSHSAA overnight becomes a shell of what it was, and the schools/state saves millions of dollars annually (most of which is the very salaries of the people that tell the children what to do and when they can do it). By using school boards that will understand the needs of that individual child on a more respectful basis and care enough to look at the totality of the situation, you should have a fairer transfer process and still can prevent these so-called super teams that they lean into the reasoning behind finding children guilty until proven innocent. Please continue to watch for more, our hope is this isn’t over but just beginning for Rue and his journey. This has always been more than basketball, but it will always and forever be about Rue!