Investigation hangs over powerful Timber Creek football program
It was Timber Creek Regional High School football at its electrifying finest. Devin Leary to Ezrah Archie. Touchdown. Leary to Archie again.
It was Timber Creek Regional High School football at its electrifying finest.
Devin Leary to Ezrah Archie.
Touchdown.
Leary to Archie again.
Touchdown again.
Harold Coleman around right end.
Touchdown.
Jerome Gibson around left end.
Touchdown.
"They're good," St. Joseph coach Paul Sacco said after the clash of two of South Jersey's best teams in a scrimmage on Wednesday afternoon. "They're really good."
Everybody knows the Chargers are good. They are the defending South Jersey Group 4 champions. They've won three sectional titles since 2011, going 52-8 while playing some of the strongest competition in the area in the last five seasons.
But these are odd times for the football program based at the high school on Jarvis Road in Erial.
The silence around this team is deafening.
One of the state's best teams is under siege, and not from opponents trying to win games or claim championships, but from critics hoping investigators will determine the Chargers broke the rules in their rise to prominence.
The Camden County Prosecutor's Office has confirmed an active investigation into the Timber Creek program.
The Black Horse Pike school district, of which Timber Creek is a part, has been working with the Prosecutor's Office for the "last three months to investigate residency concerns expressed by private citizens and other South Jersey football coaches," the district said in a statement Thursday morning.
If the Chargers are distracted by the investigation, they didn't show it Wednesday against St. Joseph, one of the most accomplished programs in South Jersey history.
But it's hard to imagine the situation not weighing heavily on coach Rob Hinson and his assistants as well as other school officials and the players and their families.
County prosecutors are not in the habit of investigating high school football programs. They tend to have a few more important things on their plate.
Does that automatically mean the Chargers are dirty? No. And let's be clear: An investigation is not a condemnation.
But the decision by the top law-enforcement agency in Camden County to devote time and resources to look into the actions of a football team - especially with regard to "residency concerns" and its implications of possible tax fraud - is no small matter.
This is serious stuff, with some potential ramifications that make the stakes of that big opening-night game Sept. 9 against Delsea shrivel in significance.
A friend of Hinson's said Wednesday that the field was "his sanctuary," away from questions about his program and concerns about the future.
The coach has declined to comment about the situation, saying only that he was "proud" of his players for maintaining their focus.
Archie, a senior wide receiver who has committed to attend the University of Pennsylvania, said many of the Chargers are convinced that "people are trying to drag our coach's name in the dirt."
The investigation likely was triggered by an anonymous letter sent in May to the Prosecutor's Office as well as the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association - the governing body for high school sports in the state - along with several South Jersey high schools and various media outlets.
The letter was apparently sent by a group that identifies itself as a "grassroots community watch group called S.T.O.P (Stop Taking Our Players)."
The letter is 13 pages long. It is single-spaced. It is highly detailed. It is also anonymous, which makes it impossible for Hinson and others in support of the Timber Creek program to face and answer their accusors at this point.
Nobody from S.T.O.P has come forward to take ownership of charges that Timber Creek has stocked its team with players who have used bogus addresses to attend the school while living outside the district.
Nobody from the Prosecutor's Office has commented, citing an open investigation. Nobody from the NJSIAA has commented, for the same reason. Nobody from Timber Creek or the Black Horse Pike school district has commented, save that short statement Thursday that also noted that two students were denied enrollment at the school for "questionable residency paperwork."
There's an eerie, uneasy quiet around the Chargers, even as the players chant and yell and work hard in practice and display their talent in loud bursts of big plays in a scrimmage.
"We knew," Sacco said, "we would have trouble with their passing game."
For about 90 minutes, it was all about football for the Chargers. It was all about blocking and tackling, first downs and touchdowns.
Timber Creek looked every bit like one of the best football teams in the state.
The Chargers looked every bit like a team without a worry in the world.
Then the whistle blew and the scrimmage ended and everybody made their way from that practice field in the shade of those big trees behind the school to the parking lot and the drive home and the wait for another loud sound.
@PhilAnastasia
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