Inthecircle

This is interesting. I know the situation well. I can prove their ages, but there is not any use to prove it here on a message board. I can say this , the youngest one is 18.2. The four that held back are either at 19 or a couple of months away. Here is where it gets odd, The one that came out at halftime and hammered D. Martin at the first Richlands/Graham game, here is a rough estimate of his stats and basketball skill. 1.) He is not averaging 1 point per game, 2) He is not averaging 1 rebound per game. 3) There are two players who don't start that put his numbers and basketball skill to shame and two more that sit the bench that are statistically much better. So this player starts and has all year except 1 game due to illness. You might be asking, what does this kid do to start ahead of 4 players who clearly have better stats than he does and are much better skilled players? Here is your answer, In a video that has surfaced during this intentional fouling investigation the head coach describes this players role, he states; "What makes (players name) so special is that if I ask him to run through a brick wall he will do it." In another comment he states; "he is in charge of our fouling, he has taken more charges than anyone on the team." He is one of the adults on the team. What does running through a brick wall have to do with basketball? This and the two fouls on D.Martin is enough evidence for me to wonder if "hard fouling" is in the Richlands playbook. Futhermore, schools need to take an important look at holding back students and make sure it is NOT to play sports. Here is the process. There are two ways to hold a student back, 1) If they are not exceling academically , 2) If they are excelling academically but are not keeping up emotionally. In both cases a letter has to be written by the parent to the principal and the approval rate is 100% . You CANNOT simply hold a student back a grade to give them an extra year of high school to play sports. People on this site give way too much credit to recruiting being the success of sport programs in Richlands when recruiting coupled with the relaxed 100% approval rate of "holding back" students is an equal advantage.