CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- With an appeal of the court order allowing four South Charleston football players to play in the Class AAA championship game expected to come Thursday morning, the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission finds itself in a familiar setting: the state Supreme Court.

The current legal fight over suspensions handed down by the SSAC following an on-field brawl at the end of the semifinal between South Charleston and Hurricane High School has produced two orders from two different state circuit courts.

One, issued by Kanawha Circuit Judge Carrie Webster, bars the SSAC from enforcing its suspension of four South Charleston athletes until after the AAA final. The other, handed down Tuesday by Brooke Circuit Judge Arthur Recht, forbids the SSAC from holding the championship game until the litigation and disciplinary issues surrounding South Charleston's team have been resolved.

While some may grumble that the courtroom is no place for decisions regarding high school athletics, the SSAC has a long history of legal clashes that have resulted in several noteworthy opinions from the state Supreme Court.

In 2007, the SSAC suspended Huntington High School basketball standout (and current NBA star) O.J. Mayo for four games -- two for his ejection after earning two technical fouls, and two for making physical contact with a referee. Cabell Circuit Judge Dan O'Hanlon granted a temporary injunction, which prevented the SSAC from enforcing its penalties.

 Mayo eventually agreed to a 13-day suspension from school for bumping the official (which kept him out of three games), and the SSAC agreed to let him serve its automatic two-game suspension for being ejected over the same period. But when O'Hanlon issued a written order in the case months later, he concluded that the SSAC's lack of an appeals process for athletes to dispute their punishment was unconstitutional.

"The failure of the WVSSAC to establish an appeal process available before enforcement of the punishment is clearly wrong. The current regulations are repugnant to any notion of due process," O'Hanlon wrote. "Balancing the mandatory, unreviewable sanction of a multi-contest suspension against the limited resources necessary to ensure equity and an opportunity for a student-athlete to be heard results in this court's finding that the appeal process is indeed lacking in fundamental fairness."

The state Supreme Court reversed O'Hanlon, ruling that voluntary participation in interscholastic athletics does not rise to the level of a constitutionally protected interest.

"Not only do we find it unwise to proceed down the path suggested by the trial court -- inviting courts to review an official's judgment call in assessing technical fouls -- but the foundational underpinnings upon which the trial court based its rulings on the issue of due process are fatally flawed," the Supreme Court's opinion states.

Four years earlier, the SSAC appealed an injunction issued by Wyoming Circuit Judge John S. Hrko that allowed Wyoming East High School football player Jeremy Hedinger to keep playing until the SSAC provided him the opportunity to object to his suspension. Hedinger was ejected for allegedly punching an opposing player, which he denied, claiming that a video of the game clearly showed that he did not commit unsportsmanlike conduct.

The court held that the case was not ready for the SSAC's appeal, and sent it back to Hrko for additional proceedings.

In a concurring opinion, then-Chief Justice Larry Starcher wondered if the SSAC might be better served by instituting an appeals process for reviewing officials' decisions that have long-term consequences, such as suspensions.

"Where an official's ejection of a student from a game will have longer-term consequences beyond simply stopping the student from playing in the ongoing game, I believe that due process may require that a student who alleges serious error in the official's action can have access to some sort of forum or process in which the student can challenge the ruling and/or consequences," Starcher wrote.

In Hedinger's case, reviewing the video might have decided the matter, Starcher noted.

"If the SSAC had a provision that permitted the SSAC to consider such claims, the court system would not be the only place -- as it appears to be the case today -- where a student who claims to have been treated unfairly can seek relief," Starcher concluded.

In another football-related case, the court held in 1989 that the SSAC had unfairly applied its rules against "red-shirting," the practice where a student repeats a grade and sits out of athletics in order to be bigger, stronger and more mature when he or she returns to the playing field.

Chris Hamilton, considered one of the top 100 or so high school football players in the country, failed the ninth grade for academic reasons. When he reached his senior year for Herbert Hoover High School the SSAC ruled him ineligible, citing its anti-red-shirting rules.

Hamilton appealed to the SSAC's Board of Appeals and Board of Review, which both upheld the Commission's ruling. After he was again unsuccessful in Kanawha Circuit Court, he appealed his case to the state Supreme Court, which allowed him to play his senior season while the matter was pending.

"[I]n their zeal to ban [red-shirting], the Commission has cast its net too wide, taking in those, like Chris Hamilton, who have just had a run of bad luck in the classroom," the opinion states.

The SSAC could maintain its ban on red-shirting in a "more reasonable and less restrictive way" by delving deeper into whether the player actually intended to break the rules, the justices concluded.

"If the Commission limits its enforcement to cases of intentional athletic red-shirting, that is sufficient to protect the best interests of the student. Such a policy, although requiring more inquiry than a per se rule, insures that academic progress is not subverted to the ignoble ends of athletic boosters," the opinion states.