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SALT LAKE CITY — Australian high school football player Zac Szymakowski won't just get to suit up for senior night at Juan Diego Catholic High School on Thursday night. Thanks to a federal judge, he will get to play varsity football for the first time this season.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell held a three-hour hearing Wednesday before deciding to side with Szymakowski in his lawsuit against the Utah High School Activities Association. The judge issued a temporary restraining order that allows the 18-year-old an exception to a rule enacted by the association (which is made up of the 159 member schools) in May that restricts the participation of F1 visa students in varsity athletics.
The association said the rule was enacted to prevent recruiting of international players to member schools, most of those private Utah high schools. But attorney David Jordan, who filed a lawsuit about 10 days ago on behalf of Szymakowski, said the rule is discriminatory because it treated F1 visa holders different simply because of their legal status in the U.S.
Campbell agreed with Jordan and Szymakowski.
"The court finds there is a strong likelihood that the student visa eligibility rule is unconstitutional," Campbell's order said. "And because the other factors the court considers all weigh in favor of granting the TRO, the court finds that Mr. Szymakowski should be allowed to play tonight's game without forfeiting his high school's eligibility for postseason competition. The court therefore temporarily enjoins the enforcement of the student visa eligibility rule as it applies to Mr. Szymakowski and the remainder of his 2024 football season."
Juan Diego hosts Grantsville Thursday night in the school's regular season finale. The team will honor its seniors, and until Campbell's ruling, Szymakowski wasn't sure he'd be able to do anything more than dress in his uniform, walk onto the field with his parents and watch the game from the sideline.
In an interview the day after the lawsuit was filed, he said the school sought to sue the association, and he agreed to become the face of the fight, even though he didn't think he'd directly benefit from it.
"I probably won't get to play varsity this year, but there's people that are going to be in my situation in the future," he said. "I don't want them to go through what I've experienced."
Mark Van Wagoner, attorney for the Utah High School Activities Association, said the judge's decision to grant a temporary restraining order "disappointed and surprised" the association's member schools throughout the state.
"We will contest any preliminary injunction hearing, which may well be scheduled after the plaintiff has finished his (high school) football career. The court ignored the fact that the rule overwhelming passed a vote of the UHSAA schools. The court suggested that the UHSAA schools take action on the infractions cited in the evidence, and we will do so promptly," he said.
Part of the defense offered by the association's attorney Craig Parry is that Szymakowski shouldn't be granted the emergency relief provided by a temporary restraining order because he knew about the rule change in May and didn't retain an attorney until the end of August.
But the judge saw Szymakowski's explanation as a good reason for the delay.
"After the UHSAA adopted this rule, Mr. Szymakowski (argues) that his football coach, coach Danny Larson, and his international student adviser told him that discussions were underway to grant Mr. Szymakowski an exception from the rule," the ruling said. "It was not until shortly before the beginning of the football season that Mr. Szymakowski learned that the UHSAA had denied his requested exception. Mr. Szymakowski repeated these assertions under oath during cross examination at a hearing on the motion for a TRO, and the court finds them credible."
The judge didn't find the delay in filing the lawsuit the student's fault, and she also wasn't persuaded by Parry's argument that a temporary restraining order mandated anything to the association.
"As a preliminary matter, the court is not persuaded that the requested TRO meets the requirements of a disfavored injunction. First, the TRO is prohibitory, not mandatory. It prohibits UHSAA from enforcing the student visa eligibility rule as it applies to Mr. Szymakowski for the remainder of his 2024 football season; it does not require the UHSAA to 'affirmatively reinstate plaintiff's eligibility, allow plaintiff to compete in varsity football, and then allow Juan Diego to compete in the postseason tournament.'"
The 38-page ruling lays out why Campbell believes subsequent hearings may better address whether the rule is discriminatory. She questioned why the association could deal with recruiting issues that involve all other students but needed a rule directly aimed at F1 visa holders to enforce recruiting rules against those students.
The extent of the problem, the ruling said, is also somewhat of a mystery.
"The court is unaware of how many students on F-1 visas currently attend high school in Utah, how many are credibly the subject of recruiting violations, and how many are credibly the subject of abuse," the ruling said. "The UHSAA may not yet have these answers either. At the hearing on the TRO motion, Mr. Hammer testified that the investigation into potential abuses was ongoing. The UHSAA suggests that the problem is extensive, but both Mr. (Craig) Hammer and coach Larson testified that poaching players — including the poaching of Utah players from one school by another — was also a widespread problem across Utah. If schools are violating the UHSAA recruitment rules, they may be recruiting students from other parts of the state and other parts of the country, not just from abroad," the ruling said.
Juan Diego currently has 26 students attending and playing sports on F1 visas. A spokeswoman for the school said that about 10 international students opted to transfer to other schools because of the Utah rule. Several of those students transferred to a charter school that doesn't compete in the association's system.
In Wednesday's hearing, Larson said a coach from Snow College was attending the game to see a few players compete, and Szymakowski was one of them.
Szymakowski said he'd done what he could to remain a part of the team and the school community rather than leave.
"I've done what I can to stay involved," Szymakowski said. "I played a couple JV games, and I've been practicing with them. I've been managing their social media page as well, so I've been trying to promote them, because we didn't really have that, and there's a lot of good athletes on our team. And so I've been doing my part to try and stay involved as well, and just try and give back to them, as they have given to me."
