MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — We’re learning more about the player who cost Spring Mills High School four victories during the 2024 regular season in high school football.
The West Virginia SSAC vacated the victories for Spring Mills for those games in which Treshawn Garmon, 18, participated.
Garmon moved to West Virginia in July and was staying with friends and acquaintances in the Spring Mills attendance area. However, he was arrested in October on a fugitive warrant from Lee County, Georgia. He was extradited back to Georgia in October to face charges of the sexual assault of a child.
Spring Mills High School self reported the eligibility violation and claimed Garmon was enrolled as a student through protections of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The federal measure is aimed at protecting the educational rights of children who are homeless. The act requires a school system to remove barriers for homeless students to acquire educational opportunities including extra curricular activities.
Spring Mills High School has now petitioned to have those wins reinstated because they claim his enrollment was simply following the federal law.
Documents filed in Berkeley County Circuit Court claimed the West Virginia SSAC made the determination Garmon did not qualify as a McKinney-Vento student. Lawyers representing the school argue in their brief such a determination was made by the SSAC only because Garmon was arrested and removed from school.
The court documents further claim such a call wasn’t the SSAC’s to make. They argue the Berkeley County Board of Education was the body better suited to determine if Garmon’s enrollment was legitimate under the McKinney-Vento status and therefore was eligible to play football.
The suit seeks to have a judge restore Garmon’s eligibility and therefore Spring Mills’ four vacated wins.