Ineligible player leads to UIL handing Fort Bend Austin HS athletics programs a 3-year probation

SUGAR LAND, Texas (KTRK) -- Using an ineligible player in the 2023-2024 school year has led to sweeping sanctions for Fort Bend Austin High School athletics.

In a statement, Fort Bend ISD said the district and Austin High School self-reported the violations. The University Interscholastic League publicly reprimanded the school.

Austin High co-coordinator and head football coach William Herrmann was handed a five-game suspension, three years probation, and a public reprimand.

ABC13 had covered the issues surrounding coach Herrmann since April when he announced he was leaving the school after being forced to resign.

In a statement to ABC13 then, Herrmann said that the issue concerns administrative duties and a clerical error. He also told 13 that he had hired a lawyer.

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Austin High School's varsity basketball coach, Donald Linden, is one of three others given two-game suspensions, two years probation, and a public reprimand. The Austin High boys basketball team will forfeit the game in which the ineligible player competed.

All Austin High School athletic programs will serve a three-year probation. The penalties imposed by the UIL fall well short of the limits of a three-year suspension that bars offenders from participating in athletic programs.

Following the sanctions, Herrmann's legal counsel offered a statement on the penalties:

"Austin HS Athletics will persist in striving ahead incrementally, despite the regrettable circumstances, with the goal of attaining triumph in all Bulldog Athletics' pursuits."