The timing couldn’t have been much worse for the Brewer High School football program.

As the Witches prepare for their first season of Class A football and their first Pine Tree Conference campaign since 1990, they’ll have to do it with 16 fewer players.

With six of 46 potential players on his squad injured and another 16 lost to academic ineligibility, Brewer coach Don Farnham is understandably frustrated as he finishes up preseason practices with only 24 healthy bodies.

To make matters worse, six of those 16 ineligibles were projected by Farnham to be starters.

Brewer athletic director Dennis Kiah explained that Brewer’s policy has remained the same for at least the last decade: students have to pass (grades of 70 or better) the equivalent of four credits or courses at the end of the previous ranking period or quarter to be eligible for school athletics in the current ranking period.

Years ago, Brewer students could attend summer school to raise their grades enough to do fall sports. That’s no longer an option.

“I don’t think that’s a good rule. I believe in academic probation,” said Bangor AD Steve Vanidestine, whose school allows students to redeem their eligibility in summer school. “I think academics is first, but taking away the opportunity of a student-athlete, whose parents pay taxes, to play could potentially take away a chance to attend a good college.

“I mean, if you’re caught with drugs or alcohol, you would be suspended for 10 days. But if you accept certain conditions [drug testing and counseling], you can come back to school in 10 days. However, if you flunk a course, you’re gone from athletics for a whole quarter?”

Kiah admitted the policy may take the incentive away for borderline students who are interested in sports and nothing else to remain in school, but said that’s the price to be paid to encourage academics.

“If they’re not going to be eligible for school, then why are they there?” Kiah asked. “Athletics do keep some kids in school, but the purpose of school is not to provide athletics and get kids ready for pro sports careers. It’s to prepare them for the next level of their lives.”

Former football coach and current Old Town athletic director Garry Spencer knows what Farnham’s team is going through.

“My first year at Old Town [1993] as head football coach, we changed our grading system and had at least that many kids, maybe 20 or so, from grades eight on up to varsity, who weren’t eligible,” Spencer explained.

Spencer said Old Town has a slightly different rule: any student failing two or more classes is ineligible to compete for the current or following quarter.

Some schools have a zero tolerance policy in which failure of just one class results in athletic ineligibility. Others mirror Brewer or Old Town, but allow students a probation period for the first two weeks of a new quarter during which students can practice with a team. If they get their grades up enough in two weeks, they are reinstated. If not, they’re out for the quarter.

“The bottom line is everybody knows ahead of time what the rules are, what they have to do, and what happens if they don’t,” said Spencer. “It’s about choices and the consequences of those choices. It’s a tough lesson to learn.

“I feel for Donny, I really do, but the rule’s there for a reason. They’re students first and athletes second.”