NCHSAA won't waive age rule for football player

From HighSchoolOT.com

Despite public momentum building that an age restriction be waived so a Sampson County teenager can suit up with his high school football team, the agency that regulates prep sports in North Carolina says there's nothing it can do.

"We want what's best for this young man, but if we make this one exception, where does it end?" Davis Whitfield, commissioner for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, said Tuesday.

Brett Bowden is a junior with Down syndrome at Hobbton High School in Newton Grove and has been a part of the varsity football team for two years, participating in practices, cheering from the sidelines and even running a touchdown play after games.

But school athletics administrators told his parents last week that he can no longer wear football shoulder pads because it violates a NCHSAA regulation that limits the age students can participate in sports to 18.

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