Eligibility enforcement was not a late invention of the commissioner's office. From the first constitution, the board of control had power to hear protests and to require leagues to suspend schools or players who violated conference rules.
On December 6, 1925, the Rocky Mountain News put that machinery on the front of the sports conversation:
“Littleton Hi May Be Ousted From State League as Arvada Protests Two Star Athletes”
The board of the Colorado High School Athletic Conference was meeting in Denver when Arvada's protest landed. The threat of ouster — removing a school from the state league over disputed athletes — shows how seriously membership and eligibility were already tied together, only four years after the Conference's founding.
Read next to the 1932 Truscott–Garnett ruling, the Littleton case is an earlier chapter in the same story: statewide rules, local protests, and a board (later a commissioner) with authority to decide who belonged on the field.