EXTRA POINTS

Above all, Sheakley’s detractors seem to want more leniency from the OSSAA.

Less black and white. More gray area.

More times than people realize, the board made the OSSAA look wishy-washy. The board would wander into that gray area after Sheakley and his staff had made a black-and-white — if not favorable — decision.

In the most well-known such decision, Sheakley and the OSSAA staff ruled that the Guthrie football team of 2011 had broken a rule and must forfeit eight games, knocking the best team in Class 5A out of the playoffs.

An appeal eventually made it to the OSSAA board of directors. Coach Rafe Watkins fell on his sword, and asked that he be punished, but not his team. And that’s the punishment the board handed down.

Lenient? Yes. By the book? Not exactly.

Before, no rule existed that called for a coach to be punished that way in that situation. Yet

Sheakley is a native of Algona, Iowa. He began coaching in Oklahoma in 1982 at Madill. He also coached at Clinton. He joined the OSSAA in 1992 and was inducted in the Oklahoma chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010.

Sheakley was promoted to executive director of the OSSAA in 2009.

He took over during a tumultuous time after the removal of former executive director Danny Rennels, who eventually pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $400,000 from the OSSAA.

Sheakley led the OSSAA through that period, and was recognized Wednesday for that. He was instrumental in placing internal protections to safeguard the OSSAA’s finances. He now, there’s a precedent for it.

Sheakley was exactly who the OSSAA needed, exactly when it needed him.

He pulled the association out of its darkest days. That’s not hyperbole. Sheakley took over just as the man who previously held the job — Danny Rennels — was found to have embezzled nearly a half-million dollars from the association.

The OSSAA’s reputation as a trustworthy organization was destroyed, but Sheakley rebuilt it as best he could in those minds open enough to give the OSSAA another look.

“I admire the work that Mr. Sheakley did. He had an unenviable and difficult task of trying to be a leader of an organization of that magnitude, and keep everyone happy, which is impossible to do,” said Douglass football coach Willis Alexander, who publicly voiced his displeasure with Sheakley and the OSSAA in 2014 during a highly debated case surrounding a playoff football game.

“But I think he did the best that also began the policy of making monthly and year-end financial reports available electronically.

Sheakley also made vendor contracts open to formal competitive proposals, which increased revenue. He also helped improve school compliance with OSSAA policies, streamline official enrollment and payment and he also reactivated the Sports Medicine Committee.

“I am proud of those achievements,” Sheakley said in a release. “and I am also very proud of the relationship we have established with Special Olympics Oklahoma, and for OSSAA’s Win-Win Week, the only state activities association program in the country in which high school students are recognized annually for their service-learning he could. It’s a thankless job. I may not have always liked it, but you have to respect the work that he did.”

Now, the powers that be feel it’s time for Sheakley to go. His black-and-white approach has grown old.

Sometimes there seems to be more common sense in the gray area. Sometimes the gray area just feels better.

The board has seen almost complete turnover in the last two years. Now, a new executive director might bring a fresh outlook, both internally and externally.

Maybe it is time for a change at the top of the OSSAA. Maybe an organization run more in the gray will make people happier.

But the gray area can be murky, too. Leniency is more subjective, which brings less clarity to rule enforcement.

Which rules deserve leniency, and which don’t? And whose decision will that be?

A more lenient OSSAA might be more yielding, but it will be far less predictable. projects.”

Sheakley reported to the board earlier this month that revenues for last school year exceeded $6 million for the first time.

“I feel I will be leaving with the association in very solid shape financially,” Sheakley said in the release.

But the OSSAA was heavily scrutinized by state legislators, the Oklahoma Supreme Court and the Oklahoma Ethics Commission for its practices during Sheakley’s tenure.

Legislation was passed in 2014 requiring the OSSAA to have written policies consistent with the Open Records Act and Open Meeting Act, along with a performance audit every five years. This came after the Oklahoma Supreme Court issued

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two rulings scathing the OSSAA for arbitrary and capricious manners of interpreting and enforcing its rules.

The OSSAA also had to pay a $1,200 fine to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission for alleged violations of lobbying disclosure rules.

Still, Hudson said no specific case factored in to Sheakley’s removal.

“I can’t speak for each individual board member about why they feel the way they feel,” Hudson said. “But for the board we made a decision based on what we thought was best for all of our schools in our association. That’s what we’re going to do now. We’re going to try to move forward in a direction we think will benefit this association and make it a positive.”