Good stuff from Sports Talk with Bo Mattingly on the latest concerning the K.J. Hill/Brad Bolding/Potentially A Whole Lot More controversy smoking in North Little Rock right now. The fallout has been swift and deep – head football coach Bolding dismissed, North Little Rock High forfeiting its 2014 state basketball title and now K.J. Hill’s amateur status in doubt.
Much of the issue traces back to a $600 check K.J. Hill’s stepfather Montez Peterson was given in February 2013. Peterson was then a NLR football team volunteer while Hill had not yet transferred from Bryant to NLRHS (that would happen two months later).
Was this illegal recruiting? Despite Peterson’s adamant denial, some believe that check confirm Hill’s move to NLR (which Peterson said was inevitable at that point anyway). And was Hill even living in a NLRHS district zone? This, and more, were things Mattingly brought up in an interview with Brad Bolding’s attorney David Couch on Friday.
Here’s an excerpt from their talk:
Couch: [Hill’s] family rented a house when they first moved here, it was in the district. Subsequently, they begun to rent an apartment that wasn’t in the district and when they found out that that apartment was not in the district, they changed it and they moved to another house that was in the district. So he was in the district.
Mattingly: So he started in the district, went out of the district, became aware of it, moved back in the district?
Right. And am not sure that the second part of that is that he actually went out of the district. I know they rented an apartment I don’t know if they took possession of it or for how long they did.
We are talking to Brad Bolding’s attorney David Couch our guest here on the JJ’s Grill Hotline. Lot of rumours, stuff like you know there was an apartment paid for by Bolding by Foundation money for KJ Hill and his family to be able to live in. What will Brad Bolding say when it’s his opportunity to talk about those kinds of accusations and I know you are hearing?
I can tell you right now that those are absolutely untrue. I mean I have, ah – there’s no evidence to that at all. I’ve looked at all of the NLR Foundation bank statements and accounts as has the North Little Rock School District. That’s just – it simply not true. And it is not even alleged by North Little Rock as something we should be even talking about.
Yeah. Ok. But what is it that you are going to say, or coach Bolding is going to say when you have your day. You are going to have a hearing, right? To appeal this?
Yes sir. Right.
OK. When you are there, what are you going to say in regards to why you think that North Little Rock school district has laid out this case that in your mind is – I don’t want to put words in your mouth – but, not reasonable for his firing. What, why do you think they are doing this?
You know, anytime you have an organisation I think have a clash of personalities. I think that has something to do with it and then one of the things I think will come out and am going to say it now is that sometime in the late fall, Coach Bolding started inquiring about invoices from the athletics department that had not been paid and not been paid and still may not be paid. And you know, there is some grant money that the athletic department got from the state that may or may not have been used in the correct way. So when [he started] asking those kind of questions coincidently you know, is when these problems started arising.
Listen to the rest of the interview here.
