What’s next for the Oak Cliff Faith Family girls basketball players?
The University Interscholastic League took severe measures to punish the Oak Cliff Faith Family Academy girls basketball program and its coaches Wednesday, preventing a super team built with 18 transfers from competing for a state title this season.
The state executive committee suspended Faith Family head coach Andrea Robinson and assistant coaches Kadi Creel and Jordan Jones from all UIL activities for two years for recruiting violations. That is one year short of the maximum penalty.
The Dallas charter school was banned from the 2024-25 postseason after being found guilty of recruiting violations, a lack of transparency and withholding information.
Austin-based attorney Tiger Hanner, who represented Faith Family at the SEC hearing, testified that some of the transfers were likely for athletic purposes, which is a violation of UIL rules.
“The numbers, whether it’s 17, 18, 19, they’re shocking,” Hanner said. “We are talking about student-athletes that are some of the best basketball players in the country. To sit here and pretend like that some of these girls at least didn’t come to Faith Family for athletic purposes would be naive. There is no question. They saw a coach like Coach Robinson and the staff she has assembled and they want to go be a part of that.”
The rulings came two days before girls basketball teams across the state can begin playing games, and the district executive committee has not met to determine whether the transfer students are eligible to play for Faith Family this season.
“If they transferred for athletic purposes, they are going to be deemed ineligible,” Hanner said. “There is a process for all of that. We’re going to get to that, and many of those student-athletes are not going to be allowed to participate in varsity athletics.”
If the players are in fact ineligible to play for Faith Family, one option is to return to their previous school, where they would be eligible without a waiver, according to UIL rules. A student must reenroll in the school within 30 days of being found ineligible at the transfer school.
Another option for the students is to transfer to a private school. But the TAPPS transfer deadline for the winter season was Tuesday, so they would have to appeal to the organization’s executive board.
The hearing revealed that 18 girls basketball players have transferred to Faith Family, not 13 as originally mentioned in the 13-5A district executive committee meeting Oct. 17. Faith Family didn’t have any girls basketball transfers last season, and testimony at the SEC meeting showed that the ones this year started to come in only after Robinson, a four-time state champion, was hired from national powerhouse DeSoto and started work at Faith Family on April 4.
The transfers included four players ranked among the top 100 recruits in the nation. Two of those — five-star junior forward Amari Byles and four-star junior combo guard Amayah “Sunshine” Garcia — played for Robinson at DeSoto the past two seasons and finished as the Class 6A state runner-up in 2023.
The other big-name players who transferred to Faith Family were four-star Alabama pledge Joy Egbuna from Mansfield Lake Ridge, four-star sophomore point guard Finley Chastain from national champion Montverde in Florida and sisters Gianna, Milania, Natalia and Nadia Jordan from Southlake Carroll. Freshman Kelenna Ozumba, an elite recruit in the Class of 2028 who already has an offer from Ole Miss, transferred to Faith Family instead of staying in Allen.
Faith Family had 15 girls basketball players on its roster last season and only two are playing for the school this season, both on the junior varsity, athletic director Marcus Canonico said Wednesday
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