Chrishon Ruled Eligible at Mission Viejo High

CIF Southern Section administrators Thursday ruled that running back Marcellus Chrishon of Mission Viejo High is eligible to continue playing football after school officials presented evidence that his mother, Rose Davis, is living within the school’s attendance area.

Chrishon’s eligibility at Mission Viejo was questioned because section officials failed to receive a transfer-eligibility request or a hardship appeal when he transferred from Temecula Valley to Mission Viejo last July.

Thursday’s ruling was made after a meeting between Southern Section administrators Dean Crowley and Bill Clark, Robert Metz, Mission Viejo principal, and representatives of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, to which Mission Viejo belongs.

Chrishon, a senior, was ineligible to play football last fall at Temecula Valley, where he lived with his aunt after moving from Phoenix. But he competed on Temecula Valley’s track team when his mother moved to the Temecula area.

Shorty after the track season, Chrishon’s mother granted legal guardianship of her son to Luis and Nelida Amposta, longtime family friends. In July, the Ampostas and Chrishon moved to Mission Viejo. Crowley said no records of the change of guardianship were filed with his office and added, “As far as we know, the mother is still living in Temecula.”

Rose Davis, an unemployed nurse, is living with the Amposta family along with Chrishon’s stepfather, Charles Rivers.

When contacted Thursday, Davis said: “I was living in the Mission Viejo area before the Ampostas moved here. All this is a bunch of bull.”

Chrishon is the ninth leading rusher in Orange County this season with 628 yards in 97 carries and 10 touchdowns. Mission Viejo, the county’s sixth-ranked team, is 5-1.