(11/6/2026 — Westfield) State Senator John C. Velis is expressing renewed outrage over the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s (MIAA) decision to exclude Boston English High School’s football team from the state playoffs, a situation that draws striking parallels to the controversy involving the Agawam High School girls’ softball team earlier this year. In both cases, student-athletes were left to face the consequences of administrative errors made by adults, despite fulfilling their responsibilities and earning the opportunity to compete.
“This is deeply frustrating and incredibly unfair,” said Senator Velis. “The young men on this team showed up every day, put in the work, represented their school, and earned the opportunity to compete. Yet because of an administrative error made by adults, those students are the ones paying the price.”
“We really need to ask ourselves: What type of message are we sending when adults make mistakes and all of the consequences fall square on the heads of kids?” Velis continued. “This is yet another example of a mistake that had nothing to do with the students, but they’re the ones being penalized for it.”
Velis also pointed to the broader impact such decisions and penalties can have on young people.
“We’ve got a youth behavioral health crisis going on in this Commonwealth and beyond. Mental health is a really big deal, and I’m just putting myself in the shoes of these kids who are being told by this organization that they can’t participate because of something they had nothing to do with. The MIAA is choosing to ignore what should be some of the best years and experiences of a young person’s life and completely disregard the mental health impacts of a decision like this, all because of an adult’s clerical error. In what world does that make sense?”
The Senator noted that high school sports teach critical life lessons including teamwork, discipline, perseverance, and accountability. Those lessons, he said, are undermined when students lose opportunities because of circumstances beyond their control. In addition, the Senator emphasized the importance of getting young people engaged in extracurricular activities and away from excessive screen time. He argued that decisions like this accomplish the exact opposite.
“We keep talking about getting kids off their phones and involved in positive activities, and then we turn around and take sports away from them because of an adult’s mistake,” Velis said.
In response, the Senator is calling on athletic governing bodies to review their policies and create commonsense remedies for situations in which procedural mistakes threaten to derail opportunities that students have rightfully earned.
“No one is arguing that rules don’t matter,” Velis said. “But rules should exist to serve students, not to harm them. There must be room for fairness, especially when the fault lies entirely with adults. The MIAA should take a hard look at this situation and ask whether justice was truly served.”
Velis said the decision highlights a troubling pattern in which student-athletes bear the consequences of mistakes that are entirely outside of their control.
“It is fundamentally unfair, it shouldn’t be allowed, and it’s quite frankly something that needs to change, and it needs to change yesterday.”
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