By Gary Chester, Senior Writer
A Missouri high school quarterback transfers for his senior year due to alleged racism, but school administrators fraudulently represent in the paperwork that he was improperly recruited and ineligible to play. The governing body declares the student ineligible, and the student and his parents file lawsuits. It’s a slam-dunk winner, right?
Yes and no. Mabins v. Missouri State High School Activities Association, Nos. SD38982 and SD38993 (Mo. App. Jan. 23, 2026) serves as a reminder that attorneys with favorable facts on their side must still plead the most applicable cause of action.
Mabins v. MSHAA, Part I
In some towns, high school football involves all the intensity of an Ohio State-Michigan game. Even though the activity concerns students in their teens, sometimes their welfare takes a back seat to the goal of winning at all costs. Such was the case with Kyle Mabins, who played quarterback for three seasons at Kickapoo High School in Springfield, Missouri before transferring to Glendale High School for his senior year. Glendale High is in the same district as Kickapoo.
Kickapoo indicated on the required transfer application that Mabins’s transfer was partly due to athletic reasons and undue influence. The Missouri State High School Activities Association (“MSHSAA”) investigated the circumstances and concluded that former Glendale coaches Mike Mauk and Ben Mauk had unduly influenced him to transfer. The Mauks had been friendly with the Mabins family since at least 2020. The Association ruled Mabins ineligible to play in his senior year. His parents filed an appeal, which MSHSAA denied.
On August 28, 2023, Mabins’s parents filed a lawsuit on his behalf against MSHSAA and the School District of Springfield (“SPS”). On September 22, 2023, Judge Derek Ankrom issued an injunction enjoining the defendants from enforcing the ruling and permitting Mabins to play for Glendale. The court found credible evidence that the athletic director at SPS and the activities director at Kickapoo had committed fraud. They had reportedly provided MSHSAA with video evidence of Mabins working out with a Glendale coach two years before the transfer. The individuals allegedly knew that the adult in the video with Mabins was not a Glendale coach.
MSHSAA filed an appeal with the Southern District Court of Appeals which affirmed the trial court’s decision on October 10, 2023. Mabins was eligible to participate in MSHSAA-sanctioned interscholastic sports. (Three days later, Kickapoo defeated Glendale 40-0, with Mabins dividing time with a teammate at quarterback.) In May 2024, the lawsuit was dismissed because Mabin had participated in football in his senior year and did not wish to play any Winter or Spring sports.
Mabins v. MSHSAA, Part II
Mabins’s parents also filed discrimination claims with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights in October 2023. They alleged that they and their son had complained about racial discrimination and harassment against Kyle and other African American students by the Kickapoo Athletic Administration. They claimed that SPS had retaliated against them and their son by falsely stating in the transfer form that Kyle’s transfer was the result of undue influence and athletic reasons, which would have rendered him ineligible to play football and other sports for Glendale but for the court’s injunction.
The parents alleged that SPS “engaged in conduct of race discrimination, harassment and hostile environment by a difference in treatment” of their son. Mabins and his parents filed separate lawsuits against the defendants in 2024, alleging discrimination in public accommodation in violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA), as well as retaliation against Kyle by making him ineligible for athletics at Glendale. The trial court dismissed the parents’ lawsuit, and they appealed to the Missouri Court of Appeals in the Southern District.
There were two issues on appeal: (1) whether the parents had a viable cause of action for direct discrimination under the MHRA and (2) whether there was a cognizable claim for discrimination by association under the MHRA.
Direct discrimination requires an allegation that the defendants denied the plaintiff “full and equal use and enjoyment” of a public accommodation because of the plaintiff’s protected class. The court cited a 2023 Missouri case in which a school district allegedly denied a transgender plaintiff equal access to the boys’ restroom and locker rooms as an example of a direct MHRA violation.
The Mabins alleged that SPS had misrepresented their son’s reason for transferring in retaliation for their complaints of racial discrimination. They alleged that the actions of SPS and MSHAA were designed to dissuade them from making reports and advocating for their son “to address and remediate unlawful prohibited conduct of discrimination and retaliation as engaged in…by SPS and MSHAA.”
The court ruled for the defendants on the issue because the parents failed to allege that they were personally denied access to areas of public accommodations because of their race or that they were discriminated against in their use of a public accommodation because of their race. Also, the parents did not allege “retaliation against themselves” on the basis of a protected class.
The court also ruled for the defendants on the parents’ claim of discrimination by association. The parents failed to allege that they were denied the right to equal use of public accommodation because they were accompanied by their son, who was an individual protected from discrimination based on his race. The court distinguished the case from a 1999 Missouri case in which a restaurant did not allow a patron and her two friends into the establishment because the two friends were blind and had guide dogs with them.
The Takeaway
Part III of Mabins v. MHSAA is Kyle Mabins’s separate lawsuit against the defendants. The basis for dismissal of the parents’ lawsuit is unrelated to their son’s claims of discrimination. If Kyle establishes harassment and discrimination based on race, he will again throw SPS for a loss. SPS may rely on an investigation by its St. Louis law firm finding that the Mabins did not complain of racial discrimination before their son’s transfer request; the Mabins claim they had registered a complaint before Kyle applied for a transfer, but SPS did not promptly investigate.
That Kyle filed his own lawsuit raises a question about the legal strategy behind his parents’ lawsuit; perhaps the family was trying for two bites from the apple.
A second and more compelling question: Why did Mabins’s parents not file a Title IX claim for harassment against the school district on their son’s behalf? Was that overlooked because he was transferring, or perhaps because playing football was the overarching priority? Had the parents pleaded racial harassment of a minor in violation of Title IX in addition to the MHRA claim, their lawsuit might have survived the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Regardless, Kyle Mabins was permitted to play for Glendale, and his former school district was exposed as caring more about athletics than athletes. And MSHAA appeared petty and misguided by appealing a preliminary finding by an impartial jurist that the SPS had conspired to keep Mabins off the field through fraud. If SPS had duped MSHAA, why continue to push for Mabins’s ineligibility? Were there other factors at play that the courts and the news media were not privy to?
The results of this student-athlete’s lawsuit will be of interest in the realm of Missouri sports and education, and possibly beyond.
