Coach Cleveland Stroud and Principal Henry Gibbs of Rockdale County High School in Conyers GA wee proud of their state championship basketball team. the town was proud of having a winning team, proud of the kids, the coach, the school. Then Coach Stroud discovered that a student who had played for 45 seconds in one post-season game bad been ineligible because he had flunked a required class. “My heart hit the floor when Coach Stroud told me,” Henry Gibbs said. “But there was never any question about what we had to do.”

Given the strength of the town’s feelings about winning, the coach and the principal were risking enormous community anger for giving up the championship because of such an innocent infraction of the rules. Coach Stroud: “Some people said we should have just kept quiet about it….but you’ve got to do what’s honest and right….I told my team that people forget the scores of basketball games; they don’t ever forget what you’re made of.” The town of Conyers had backed the coach all the way when they were winning--they didn’t turn on him for sticking to the rules. But some people got mad when the state went ahead and took Rockland’s trophy away--they thought the coach and the team were still winners. When the newspaper asked for money to buy the school a new trophy, they raised so much they had to send some back.

Update:

The recognition netted Stroud a slew of state, national and international honors. Most notably, an International Olympic Committee Award. Countless articles were written about him in publications such as The New York Times and Sports Illustrated. Now retired from the school system, he continues to work as a tax preparer and ‘coach to player’ operator for the Atlanta Falcons. He’s also a city of Conyers Councilman, and is a member of the service-oriented Rockdale Citizens Progressive Club. And when the high school got a new gym, guess who they decided to name it for.
http://www.rockdalecitizen.com/news/2012/oct/30/school-board-to-name-gym-after-former-coach/