Keonte Minor had seven catches for 108 yards and a touchdown in the first half, while Anthony ‘PT’ Pierson had 78 of his 96 yards rushing in the third quarter and two touchdowns as East St. Louis rolled over Belleville West 51-2 in Southwestern Conference play this weekend.
The Flyers improved to 4-0 in SWC play and 6-0 overall. They have not lost a conference game since October of 2005, and continue to hold a firm grip as the number one ranked team the Associated Press Illinois Class 7 –A State Football poll.
East Side won without All-State lineman Charles Tigue, who is the team leader in tackles. Last week, the Illinois High School Association ruled Tigue ineligible for a residential issue that emerged from a criminal proceeding. Tigue had taken part in an armed robbery in 2007 with his cousin. It was a very stupid thing on his part. His cousin was sentenced to 15 years last week. Meanwhile, Charles will have his hearing Nov. 22. It was a terrible mistake by both of them, which affected the lives of innocent people and others in their families as well.
I have personally known Charles since he was a little boy (since 1999, to be exact) and didn’t know until last week that the young man was even involved in something like this. He’s always been a “yes sir, no sir” young man in my presence. But he made a terrible mistake. He should be punished, no doubt! But I don’t think you give up on a young man at such an early age.
Part of this young man’s healing process started two years ago also while he was a juvenile. As a result, he was set stiff conditions by the judge, with other stipulations which include academics and being on-time at school. He never had a violation of his conditions since being under court monitoring for two years while awaiting his November hearing.
Tigue’s residence became an issue when it was reported that the young man’s monitoring device was registered at an address in the Belleville East district. The IHSA declared Tigue ineligible for last week’s game against Belleville West until the matter of his residency was cleared up.
Coach Darren Sunkett was being attacked for letting his nephew play after he committed a robbery. I thought a judge said it was okay for him to play?
There was so much misinformation going out on a local radio show hosted by Charlie “Tuna” Edwards with his co-host Moses, where some people were calling blasting this kid without even reading the article or doing any research regarding this young man and his terms and conditions.
One caller even brought up something that happened 11 years ago while Sunkett was at Riverview! But the thing that took the cake was when a caller called and mentioned what’s going on at SLU and the situation with two of “Slick Rick” Majerus’ boys and asked why people aren’t talking about that. The host stated, “Well, I was asked not to mention this over the air,” but went on to discuss it.
A little research would have told you it was a judge who granted Tigue the privilege to play football while awaiting his hearing. It was not the coach. That’s his uncle coaching him. Wouldn’t you rather he is with him everyday for about 12 hours? Football, like other sports, is used often as a way of discipline. If Charles was a young boxer who made a mistake and stayed in the gym to stay off the streets to avoid trouble, he’d be praised.
