From Sideline Chatter:
It’s the anti-“Hoosiers” — “Loosiers,” if you will — but an Indiana high-school basketball player has been kicked off his team for passing the ball to a teammate.
Just one problem: That teammate was sitting on the bench at the time.
A little background: Some players and parents at Indian Creek High School in Trafalgar, Ind., have chafed against coach Larry Angle, who they believe has promoted the play of his son — 6-foot-7 Iowa recruit J.R. Angle — at the team’s expense. A 5-15 record this season only turned up the tension.
So, a few possessions after J.R. broke the Johnson County scoring record and then retired to the bench, junior Justin Ray — who’d been put up to it by teammates and adults — facetiously did what he felt his coach had programmed him to do and delivered the shocking pass.
Word circulated around town that hundreds of dollars had been raised to pay Ray for the dirty deed, the Indianapolis Star reported, though the actual amount was $45. The coach’s car has also been vandalized.
“Indian Creek is a nightmare,” Garry Donna, publisher of Hoosier Basketball magazine, told the Star. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this happen. Nothing even close.”