LeBron James popularized -- and perhaps even mythologized -- the ‘Chase Down’ block, where a player runs down a foe on a fastbreak in front of him and swats away what seems like a sure bucket. Now a player from from Milton (Ga.) Academy may have perfected the move.

As you can see in the clip above, Milton’s Justin Kornegay slapped away a lay up with a serious contender for block of the season with a massive ‘CD’ in a game against Atlanta-area rival Marrietta (Ga.) Walton High. The swat turned away an easy basket for Walton … and did so with some authority at that.

Milton rolled to a 74-53 victory in the game, pushing the Eagles to a 13-10 record. That’s not bad in the tough proving grounds of Georgia high school hoops, but much of the school’s 2012-13 campaign has been overshadowed by the September dismissal of legendary Milton coach David Boyd amidst scandalous recruiting allegations.

Now those ugly allegations and the entire Boyd era are in the past … much like any thoughts one Walton player may have had of an easy layup before Kornegay came rushing in behind him.

With athleticism like that, this probably won’t be the last we’ll see of Kornegay, whether at Milton or wherever he ends up next.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner in the contest for “creepiest high school coach in America." His name is Zachary Reeder, and if he is guilty of even part of what he is accused of, he is a deeply morally broken man.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times and the Irvine Daily Pilot, the 30-year-old Orange Cal. Resident and Irvine (Cal.) Beckman High baseball coach was arrested on charges of suspicion of lewd conduct with a child, possession and distribution of child pornography, and child annoyance. The charges he faces are connected to allegations that he set up a fake Facebook account of a young blond female to lure explicit photos of teenage boys.

The Daily Pilot reported that the coach used the fraudulent Facebook account to befriend teenage boys and then lure them into “catfish” relationships not unlike a lesser version of the scam which apparently snagged ex-Notre Dame superstar Manti Teo. First, he would connect with teenage boys on the social media site, slowly drawing their interest until they eventually felt comfortable exchanging nude photos with him.

The victims of Reeder’s alleged actions range in age but are reportedly as young as 14.

At this point there is no proof that Reeder distributed the photos beyond his own control, or that he made any physical contact with the teens he befriended online.

That will be of little comfort to the parents of the Beckman baseball players or students at Anaheim (Cal.) Servite High, where Reeder has been employed since 2008.

In the meantime, Irvine police have asked anyone who feels that they may know other victims to reach out to them as they continue to assess just how much damage Reeder may have inflicted on impressionable young lives.

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No matter what happens next, the record will always show that for one day, Jonah Zahm was a member of the Phoenix Suns. In the process, he became the youngest member of the Suns in team history.

Of course, Zahm was only a member of the Suns in spirit. He never played in a game, yet he still may have had as big an impact on the Suns team as any new addition in recent times. That’s because just by being there, Zahm helped put everything in perspective.

As chronicled by the Arizona Republic, Zahm is a 12-year-old who suffers from a rare seizure condition called pyridoxine dependent epilepsy, which forces him to take 12-15 pills orally each day to limit his seizures. After two years waiting for his turn to get his wish as part of the Make-A-Wish program, Zahm flew from the Zahm family farm in Osco, Ill. to Phoenix to meet members of the Suns.

Yet the Suns had other ideas. Rather than just have Zahm meet team members in the locker room, Suns general manager Lance Blanks signed the middle schooler to the team, holding an official signing ceremony and a press conference where Zahm was even asked how he planned to defend Oklahoma City stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

“Today is an exciting day in Suns basketball,” Blanks told the press assembled at the signing ceremony. “I have the honor of introducing what I think will be the greatest Sun for a day in history.”

Zahm clearly made an impression, hitting eight straight shots at the team shootaround and leading the team’s midcourt “huddle break”. Afterwards he shared lunch with his favorite player, Channing Frye, who couldn’t quite wrap his head around just how knowledgeable Zahm was about basketball.

“I was shocked how much knowledge he had,” Frye told the Republic. “He was just rattling off numbers, stories and memories.”

Now, thanks to the Suns, Zahm will have one amazing memory above all others.

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A Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association spokesman apologized for dubbing gymnastics "a girls' sport" after Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman scolded him on Twitter and other notable gymnasts voiced their displeasure.

“It’s a girls’ sport,” MIAA spokesman Paul Wetzel told The Boston Globe in the wake of the state organization's decision to drop boys' gymnastics from its list of sanctioned sports. “When was the last time you watched boys’ gymnastics? They don’t get on the cover of the Wheaties box. They don’t get the endorsements.”

That's when Raisman -- who appeared to be in line for her own Wheaties box after winning two gold medals and a bronze for the USA Women's Gymnastics Team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London -- took to Twitter to give Wetzel a piece of her mind, calling the MIAA spokesman's comments "extremely disappointing" and "ridiculous."

Extremely disappointing that boys gymnastics is being dropped by MIAA.This quote upsets me. boston.com/news/local/mas… twitter.com/Aly_Raisman/st…

— Alexandra Raisman (@Aly_Raisman) January 28, 2013

There is absolutely no such thing as a "girl sport" #ridiculous

— Alexandra Raisman (@Aly_Raisman) January 28, 2013

The Bay State's two highest-profile boys' gymnastics products also blasted the state association's 10-2 vote to eliminate males from officially competing in The Globe.

“I think it’s a travesty,” said Tim Daggett, a former West Springfield (Mass.) High standout who captured gold at the 1984 Olympics. “It’s an opportunity that isn’t going to be there for kids who really love the sport. To not be able to represent your high school in the sport you love, it’s very upsetting, without any question.”

One-time Braintree (Mass.) High star, 1976 Olympics bronze medalist and former USA Men's Gymnastics Team coach Peter Kormann added: “I think it’s a shame. I thought it was a poor decision. There’s nothing to be gained here.”

As a result, Wetzel publicly apologized in The Globe on Wednesday. “Sorry I said what I said. I was trying to make a point, and I put my foot in mouth.” Still, he claimed the MIAA is currently not considering reversing its decision.

If the ruling stands, the state's seven high schools that currently feature boys' gymnastics teams (Andover, Attleboro, Braintree, Burlington, Lowell, Newton North, and Newton South) will conduct their final sanctioned event at the state tournament this month.

Newton North High boys' gymnastics coach Steven Chan told The Globe he believed most male gymnasts would then join their respective school's girls' gymnastics teams.

The MIAA ruling resulted from the National Federation of High School Associations' decision to stop writing rules for boys' gymnastics since only about 100 schools in three states nationwide currently feature sanctioned squads, according to The Globe report.

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Let’s face it: Shaquille O’Neal is one big fellow. Now that he spends his days as a basketball analyst rather than a basketball athlete, he’s a little less agile than he used to be as well. Put those two factors together, and suffice it to say that it takes a lot to get Shaq Daddy up out of his seat once he initially sits down.

Well, now we know what hits that threshold: The game-winner you see above, as scored by Decatur (Ga.) Shiloh High, from nigh on half court.

As captured by Home Team Hoops, Shiloh guard Nate Mason Jr. drilled the game-winning three-pointer you see above to edge past Baltimore (Md.) St. Francis Academy, 55-54, at the 2013 Montverde Academy Invitational in Florida. Shaq was in attendance because Montverde is relatively close to his homebase at Isleworth outside Orlando.

The legendary big man got to see quite a game, with St. Francis taking a 54-52 lead with fewer than five seconds remaining in the game. Shiloh just had time to get the ball to Mason Jr,, who turned upcourt, raced to mid-court and then pulled off the near unimaginable teen feat of launching into a completely normal looking jump shot that sailed straight in from behind the midcourt line.

Seriously, watch that shot again. It’s as if Mason Jr. was pulling up from 15 feet. That may be the calmest midcourt game-winner anyone will ever see.

It went through as if it was taken from 15 feet, too, sending Shaq into histrionics in his apparent shock at the bucket.

The victory served as an impressive salve for Shiloh, which fell to host and rising national power Montverde a day earlier. Fortunately, something tells us that Mason Jr. and his teammates will remember his game-winner much more clearly than the team’s 61-53 loss to Montverde in the years ahead.

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Forgive Avery Ingram for ignoring the "seeing is believing" idiom.

The Sheldon (Eugene, Ore.) High senior just concluded his prep wrestling career with 20 victories. That's impressing enough for any high school wrestler and even more remarkable when you consider Ingram has been blind since age 2.

Ingram's path to glory was chronicled in this feature in Oregon's Register-Guard. He can be seen in green recording one of his 20 career victories in the embedded video.

Despite a tumor in his eye that left him without his sight as a toddler, Ingram grew up learning kung fu before joining Sheldon's wrestling squad as a high school freshman.

“Avery did better than I could have ever expected,” Sheldon coach Elias Soto told The Register-Guard. “He came to wrestling as a freshman, and I thought he might be trying it out because that is what a lot of kids do at that age. That wasn’t the case with Avery.

"What makes wrestling unique is that it caters to people with disabilities, it measures your mental toughness and heart while other sports are so fixated on athletic ability," added Soto, who wrestled at nearby Churchill (Eugene, Ore.) High. "Wrestling was instantly a fit for Avery, something he could sink his teeth into and be successful."

After winning just four matches in his first two seasons on the Irish, Ingram earned six victories as a junior and 10 in the 145-pound division as a senior.

“I liked wrestling, but learning the moves was difficult,” Ingram told the paper, so he started researching the sport, borrowing books on technique from the library. His passion inspired his brothers Devon (two years older) and Tyler (two years younger) to join the team, and they would help explain their coach's instructions to Avery.

While state prep wrestling rules require opponents to maintain contact with blind competitors, according to The Register-Guard, Avery Ingram knows better than anybody that the disadvantages of being visually-impaired vastly outweigh that possible edge.

“That helps a lot, but people break contact sometimes even though they aren’t supposed to,” he said. “I can pretty much tell where people are. If we are both standing up, I can tell by where their arms are. Usually, I don’t shoot for the legs because I can’t tell if one leg is forward. If one is forward, you are supposed to do one move, and if both are forward, you do another, so I don’t shoot for the legs. I go for the arms or go with a bear hug.”

If not for Avery Ingram's incredible story, you'd have to see it to believe it.

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One can forgive Lacy Asdourian for the moments when she is puzzled about how she has emerged as the long girl on a high school boys basketball team.

Entering her junior season, Asdourian anticipated being the star of the girls basketball team at Redding (Cal.) Liberty Christian School. A talented multi-sport athlete, she was ready for the responsibility that would come from leading the team. Then, just days into tryouts, her team was scrapped due to a lack of numbers. Of the four players from the planned girls basketball team who had stuck around through the first few practices before the team was cut, only Asdourian seemed disconsolate about losing basketball.

Seeing her passion for the game, Liberty Christian’s athletic director Todd Franklin asked her to show up at a boys practice. According to MaxPreps and a handful of other profiles of Asdourian, after a few days, Franklin presented her with three options: giving up on basketball, transferring to another school which featured girls basketball or playing with the boys, who are coached by Franklin himself.

After three tortuous weeks debating those options, Asdourian selected option 3 and promptly began suiting up with the Liberty Christian boys. The results have been impressive, both for Asdourian and the team. The lone female member of the Patriots squad is a rock as their point guard, a keen distributor of the ball and tough defender who has helped set the tone for the Patriots in key games.

“I think it should be saved for unique cases," Franklin told MaxPreps. "I don’t think we would suggest it no matter how talented a girl may be. Like even a Brittney Griner from Baylor. It’s important to let kids play on their separate teams and to let them experience basketball.

“She’s a good kid stuck in a tough spot and she is making the most of it. She is going to have a phenomenal senior year because of it.”

Thanks in large part to Asdourian’s decision, Liberty Christian has rolled to one of its more memorable seasons in recent years, racking up a 17-7 record as a likely Division V playoff squad.

Throughout the process Asdourian has earned plenty of plaudits and peculiar looks simply for trotting on the floor with a ponytail. The junior claims that the attention goes against her personal nature, but her ability to help drive Liberty has made it hard not to notice her.

“It’s how my personality is. I would rather blend in,” Asdourian told MaxPreps. “It’s the boys’ season and I don’t want to take anything away from them by getting extra attention. I’ve never liked being the center of attention.

“I wanted to stay at Liberty because I’ve been here since kindergarten and it’s in my comfort zone. My parents still wanted me to play because I’ve always been involved with a sport. I just wanted to be involved.”

Clearly, she’s not only stayed at Liberty; she’s thrived, and helped bring her teammates even closer together by being a part of a very close-knit unit.

“It's been very good for them. In our society, we have lost a little of how to treat women like ladies. These guys have done a good job of being gentlemen and standing up for her,” Franklin said. “I said treat her like your sister. She gets fouled and one of my kids wants to go punch the guy. So then it was treat her like she’s my daughter. They are learning how to practice with her. It's been good for our guys.

“In practice she is not treated any differently at all defensively or offensively.”

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At this point, America knows that Tyra Buss is one heck of a scorer. What the collective American public may not have known is just how tough the Mount Carmel (Ill.) High junior star can be.

As reported by the Daily Republican Register, Buss separated her shoulder during the first half of Mount Carmel’s Class 2A girls basketball sectional semifinal against Sullivan (Ill.) High. At the time, Buss had scored just 10 points, and she clearly knew that if her team was going to emerge victorious it would need more out of her.

So, Buss did what winners with an abundance of guts and determination do: She popped the shoulder back into place on her own, then came out in the second half and scored another 30 points to lead Mount Carmel to the Sectional finals.

By game’s end, the Indiana recruit was the contest’s leading scorer, as always. She had contributed more than half of Mount Carmel’s 72 points in a 72-56 victory, and she scored 75 percent of those points after suffering her left shoulder injury.

If that isn’t toughness, Prep Rally doesn’t know what is.

According to Buss’ father, Tyra Buss was in pain while scoring buckets in the third quarter, but it became less acute as the game went on, and the family is hopeful that preventative measures since the injury would minimize its longer implications as the season moves forward.

“It seemed to get better as the game progressed,” Tim Buss told MaxPreps. “Tyra has been icing her shoulder since the injury. Today will see how much she has progressed."

That’s good news for Mt. Carmel, which could hardly even picture girls basketball success without its apparently indestructible scoring machine.

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To call Mason Gentry’s rise meteoric might be an understatement. In February 2012, Gentry literally couldn’t figure out how to put on football pads. A year later, he’s a signed, sealed and delivered Division I football recruit at SMU.

As noted by the Dallas Morning News, Gentry’s rise may be the most impressive of all the ascension stories in national football recruiting class of 2013. At 6-foot-7 and 260 pounds, Gentry certainly had the size to play major football. Yet, until his senior year he had never had the passion to do so.

Finally, a group of Gentry’s friends convinced him to give football a try, even if it meant going through embarrassing ordeals like learning to put on one’s football pads for the first time.

“I didn’t know how to put pads on or my helmet on,” Gentry told the Morning News. “I had to have my buddies help me.”

In the past, Gentry had focused on baseball, hoping to develop into a super-sized Adam Dunn-like first baseman. The teen had always planned to play out his entire varsity baseball career, yet his success in football was so stratospheric that he eventually agreed to push baseball to the side so he could focus on college football and the additional commitment it will require.

“Once I started figuring out how good I could be, I chose to play football,” Gentry told the Morning News. “Since I’m new to football I chose to focus on just that.”

A Georgia native who moved to Plano during his junior year, Gentry has taken quickly to the Dallas area and said that SMU’s location played a factor in his commitment. So did the Mustangs’ development of Margus Hunt, a fellow newcomer to football who has gone from a novice to top NFL draft prospect in five years at SMU.

Whether Gentry can follow in Hunt’s footsteps remains to be seen. He has the size to do so … not to mention friends to thank to even get the opportunity.

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Pray this story isn't true.

A North Carolina high school wrestling official issued a warning to a Wake Forest-Rolesville (Wake Forest, N.C.) High competitor for praying prior to a match, eventually costing him a point and leading to a 3-0 loss, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

As he has done all season, WFRHS junior Nicholas Fant kneeled at the center of the mat for a prayer that lasted all of two seconds before taking onCary (N.C.) High's Corey Daniels in a 220-pound match, the News & Observer's J. Mike Blake reported.

Only this time the referee issued a delay warning, claiming Fant intentionally stalled the match -- despite the fact he stood up prior to his opponent entering the circle and before the referee finished issuing the penalty, according to the paper.

According to the National Federation of High School Athletic Associations, "It is stalling when either wrestler delays the match. This includes straggling back from out of bounds, unnecessarily changing or adjusting equipment or delay in assuming the starting position on the mat." In 2008-09, the NFHS issued 27 pages of guidelines for calling "stalling," and nowhere in the document is pre-match prayer mentioned.

As a result, Wake Forest-Rolesville head coach Sam Hershey plans to seek clarification about the ruling, although he won't officially report his frustration with the official to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, according to the News & Observer.

If he wanted, Hershey might actually have a case with the NCHSAA. When Fant and Daniels were later each called for stalling during the match, it cost the WFRHS wrestler a point. While Fant lost to Daniels, 3-0, and Wake Forest-Rolesville fell to Cary, 33-30, who knows what might have happened if he hadn't fell behind in the match?

You may recall Tumwater (Wash.) High running back Ronnie Hastie, who was whistled for a penalty in 2010 after pointing to the heavens following a touchdown run, but this is the first I've heard of an athlete being penalized for a pregame prayer. Just imagine if Ray Lewis was whistled every time he stopped to pray? The Super Bowl might still be going on, and Joe Flacco would be starting ever drive from the 1-yard line.

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Forget the NHL, one need look no further than high school-aged junior hockey in Canada to see the real big hits.

As dug up by Prep Rally’s brotherly Canadian junior hockey blog Buzzing the Net, the monster hit above comes from a Central Canada Hockey League game in Ontario, where the Carleton Place Canadians were visiting the Gloucester Rangers. The CCHL is a junior “A” league featuring solely players age 20 or younger.

One of those players is Canadians hard charging defenseman Elias Ghantous, who clearly is the best clean hitter the league has seen in some time. In the play above, Rangers star Keegan Rowe was attempting to start a push up the ice by slipping alongside the boards. Ghantous would have none of it, completely obliterating Rowe with a clean bodycheck that sent him sprawling and sent the puck sliding back into the safety of the outskirts of the Canadians’ zone.

That’s where Ghantous’ teammates took over, starting an two-man-up rush of their own that led to a quick goal.

According to Buzzing the Net’s Neate Sager, Ghantous isn’t a scorer (almost at all; he has just two goals in 119 games), but he is such an imposing physical presence that he has already earned a Division I college hockey scholarship. The 6-foot-4 widebody has committed to skate at Robert Morris beginning in 2014.

In the meantime, he’ll continue competing for the Canadians, all at the expense of any opponents who have the temerity or momentary poor judgment to try and slip by Ghantous along the glass.

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A traditional Catholic-backed youth football league in Pennsylvania is finding itself in the midst of a maelstrom of public controversy after it barred a female player who had participated in the association’s leagues for five years. The Catholic league’s reasoning? It has always held that tackle football was too dangerous for a girl.

As reported by CNN, ABC News and a handful of other Philadelphia and national outlets, 11-year-old Caroline Pla is a devoted football fan in the Phildaelphia area. She first began playing youth football with the Philadelphia Archiocese Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) as a 5-year-old kindergartner and never looked back.

Then, suddenly the Philadelphia CYO decided to give Pla the boot, enforcing a league rule that mandated only male children, like Pla's 14-year-old brother, participate in tackle football. Pla, who now stands 5-foot-3 and 110 pounds, had been an all-star offensive guard and defensive end while playing tackle football for the prior two seasons.

"I was mad," Pla told CNN. “Just really mad that we don't get the same opportunity as boys just because we're not a boy.

[Related: Massachusetts official apologizes for calling gymnastics 'a girls' sport']

"Not only am I not going to be able to play, but girls all over aren't going to be able to sign up. And I don't think that's fair."

Pla is right: The CYO policy isn’t fair. It’s sexist and discriminates against young girls. Yet, because the organization doesn’t receive public funding (CYO relies on donations and funding from an area’s supporting Archdiocese to support its programs), there really isn’t much that Pla and her family can do.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. Pla’s mother, Seal Pla, started a change.org petition aimed at getting CYO to allow girls to play on its football teams. The Pla petition has received more than 100,000 signatures, yet the CYO organization has yet to budge.

That’s a huge shame both for Pla and the league according to her former coach.

"We didn't make a big deal about [her being a girl],” Pla’s former coach George Reichwein told CNN. "Anyone who went head-to-head with her ended up on the ground. After a week, [her gender] was laid to rest.

"This whole fight is for other people more than it is for her. She's such a caring, kind, well-rounded young lady who's able to put a helmet on, throw a switch and knock you on your butt."

At this point, the Pla family has exhausted all reasonable resources to try and change the rule. They have started petitions and saturated the media, even landing an appearance for Caroline on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

If anything, that media exposure appears to have hindered Pla’s chance at gaining reinstatement, which will be ruled on once and for all by the Philadelphia Archdiocese in mid-March. After she wrote a letter to the Charles Chaput, the Archbishop of the Philadelphia Diocese, Chaput responded extolling the virtues of Pla’s commitment to football, but also admonishing her willingness to work through the media to build attention around the issue.

"I admire your love of the game, Caroline, and I'm impressed by your zeal in pursuing the opportunity to play it," he wrote. "At the same time, it's important to understand that pressure is not a good way of showing respect for dedicated people who are simply fulfilling their duty to protect young people in sports."

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Outside the Game from Yahoo! Sports:

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When Schuyler LaRue headed to the Tennessee state wrestling tournament on Thursday, the Maryville (Tn.) Heritage High junior knew that he had a tough road ahead of him. What LaRue didn't know was that the challenges facing him included a spontaneous life saving CPR performance.

As reported by the Nashville Tennessean, LaRue was using the restroom when an older patron at the tournament collapsed and hit his head. LaRue's training as a summer lifeguard kicked in and he immediately stabilized the man and began performing CPR.

"I saw him and thought he was stumbling, and he fell and hit his head," LaRue told the Tennessean.

“I got him in a neutral position and started doing compressions and just did what I needed to do. His pulse went in and out, and I just kept going until someone came in and tapped me on the shoulder and said I’m an [EMT].”

That EMT then took Ron Bussey to the hospital. Bussey is a 68-year-old former assistant under Wilson (Tn.) Central High John Kramer when the duo were both living in Michigan. Bussey now comes to the Tennessee state tournament to support Kramer, who told the Tennessean that his former assistant was in stable condition at a nearby hospital on Thursday night.

Naturally, he might not have been so lucky if it weren't for the quick thinking of a resourceful -- and talented -- teen wrestler who went on to win his opening round match shortly after his CPR episode.

“He’s a great kid, got a great head on his shoulders,” Heritage coach Jerry Teaster said. “It was great for him to react like that.

“He was worried about [Bussey]. But he came back strong once they came back and said [Bussey] was OK and talking.”

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The Washington Redskins keep releases valiant defensive treatises regarding the NFL franchise’s racist nickname. In each of them, they note how many American high schools are also nicknamed the Redskins.

There’s just one ironic detail about this latest Washington charm offensive: In the same week that they were extolling the virtues of the Redskins as a nickname, the students of one school whose teams are still called the ‘Skins voted to change their nickname, poste haste.

As reported by the Associated Press, teams competing for Cooperstown (N.Y.) Central High will no longer be known as the Redskins as soon as the school board selects a mascot/nicnkname replacement.

The Daily Star of Oneonta first reported that Cooperstown high school and middle school students had voted to change the district’s mascot.

Unlike the Washington Redskins, Cooperstown Central had more of a justification for naming its teams after a Native American figure. Cooperstown was the hometown of famed author James Fenimore Cooper, who penned “The Last of the Mohicans” among other tomes. As it stands, Cooper’s legacy with the school may not end with the Redskins nickname’s demise.

The AP reported that Deerslayers, Hawkeyes and Pathfinders, all characters in Cooper novels, are the current favored mascots to take the Redskins’ place.

That all of this rather civilized civic action is occurring just hours north of the NFL home of Daniel Snyder’s riches should not go unnoticed. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the Redskins released profiles of high schools that still use the Redskins moniker as the nom de participation of their sports programs with pride.

If only Snyder had taken notice of things going on in New York, the franchise’s defense of its outdated, traditional name might not have been undercut by a bunch of teenagers who are apparently more mature than the NFL owner himself. The Cooperstown students may not have intended to undercut Snyder's larger strategic point, but they hardly could have been more persuasive, or effective.

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I know you're not supposed to bring a knife to a gunfight, but now apparently you shouldn't wear glasses to a hockey dad fight, either.

Naturally, one Canadian hockey father didn't take kindly to a baby-wielding man calling his 15-year-old son "a midget," so the former confronted the latter -- to which the name-caller responded: "Don't touch me, or I'm going to cave your [expletive] glasses in. You got that?" (h/t Deadspin.) Well, then. That settles that. Or maybe it doesn't.

Video of the confrontation was posted on YouTube, the man who's son was called "a midget" shared his thoughts with CBC Manitoba News and the Lord Selkirk Minor Hockey Association has subsequently investigated the incident.

“His remarks were uncalled for -- completely irresponsible, and for an adult to go on like that, at a kid’s game, is unimaginable,” Chuck Kitson told CBC. “I was intimidated. I was scared. His behavior was as violent and threatening as I’ve seen in any hockey game."

Jason Boyd is the man in question, according to CBC; he's the hockey father who threatened to cave Kitson's glasses in front of who we can only assume was his wife and while holding who we hope is his own baby. Boyd refused comment for the story.

Believe it or not, the story gets worse. According to the report, Kitson's son -- the kid who Boyd called "a midget" -- broke his arm in the same game on Monday at the Southdale Community Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

"He celebrates again," Kitson told CBC. "It was hard to watch. These are kids on the ice."

The minor-league hockey association has recommended that Boyd be banned from all games this season and awaits Hockey Winnipeg's ruling, CBC reported.

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It's over, folks. This right here has got to be the prep dunk of the year.

The wicked slam you see above was delivered by Greenwood (Miss.) Amanda Elzy guard Rahkeem Lehaman, who flushed home two points with authority and the kind of athleticism that is awfully tough to match.

The dunk in question, as delivered by the senior who currently has scholarship offers from four Division I programs, came during an intra-state face off against Memphis (Tenn.) East High, with the East defenders left with absolutely nothing they could do to limit the damage inflicted by Lehaman to their narrow lead or their collective psyche.

That the dunk came off an utterly botched shake-and-bake with Memphis East heading up the floor couldn't have helped, either, but it was Lehaman's slam which truly carried the day.

As it turns out, Lehaman's athleticism alone wasn't enough to lift Amanda Elzy, with Memphis East eventually edging out a 75-73 victory.

Still, that hardly eases the sheer shock provided by Lehaman's best-in-class jam, which was worthy of the NBA festivities this weekend (the games, folks, not necessarily the Slam Dunk Contest), let alone an intra-state prep hoops game.

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Much has been made of the prospective decline in the NBA Draft stock of Kentucky freshman Nerlens Noel, and the subsequent decline of his future paycheck as a result. There’s good reason for that, as Noel almost certainly would have been the top pick in the 2012 NBA Draft if he’d been allowed to enter directly from high school, just as the likes of LeBron James and others were before him.

It’s too late to change any NCAA rules to help Nerlens Noel; he’s already put in his collegiate hoops time and paid his time. Yet it isn’t too late for the current crop of top seniors, a number of whom could definitely earn high lottery slots in the forthcoming NBA Draft if they were allowed to enter it.

Now two of those top stars have spoken out to call the NBA’s age rule, perjoratively referred to as the “one-and-done” rule, flat out unfair. From a pure analytical standpoint they’re right; there is no true, scientifically demonstrable reason why players should have to compete for a single year after finishing high school to enter the top flight of professional basketball. More strikingly, from a best practices rule for both the NBA and NCAA they may be right, too.

USA Today carried quotes from both Julius Randle, the number 2 ranked player in the Rivals150, and top center prospect Dakari Johnson (originally given to the Louisville Courier-Journal), both calling for high school graduates to be allowed to enter the NBA Draft. The prep stars’ logic is persuasively simple: When you’re ready to play in the NBA, you’re ready, and a single year of “seasoning” won’t make much of a difference.

“I think you should be able to go ahead and go if you’re ready,” Randle told USA Today. “When you’re ready, you’re ready.”

Naturally, that single year of college basketball becomes even less justifiable when one considers it’s the NCAA that benefits from these players’ uncompensated talent, never the players themselves.

That point has clearly resonated with Johnson, who is the prep center slated to take Noel’s place, assuming that Noel follows the lead of former Wildcat center Anthony Davis and enters the NBA Draft after his freshman year, knee injury or not. Johnson was in the stands when Noel was injured, and the experience clearly left him concerned.

“I think, you know, if you have a chance to go, then why not?” Johnson told the Courier Journal. “Why hold a kid back if he has an opportunity to realize his dream and help his family out? Why not just let him go?”

Why hold a player back, indeed. Prep Rally doesn’t have a valid answer for that. The question is whether the NBA and/or NCAA do.

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In December, Prep Rally brought you the remarkable tale of Julian Newman, a pint-sized fifth grader who was lighting up the Florida prep hoops scene as the starting point guard for Downey (Fla.) Christian School. Since then Newman’s fame has continued to rise, eventually catapulting him to the front of the New York Times sports section on Sunday.

While the Times’ article on Newman mostly hit on the same high points noted here at Prep Rally in December -- that Newman is tiny (he's so short that he has to roll over his shorts just so they don't reach his shoes) and incredibly talented with the basketball -- it did unearth one rather audacious new development: Some teams on Downey’s schedule have resorted to forfeiting their games against the rising squad rather than face the indignity of losing to a team featuring a fifth grade point guard.

There’s good reason for opponents fearing a los to Downey. After years as a conference also ran, the squad has rolled to an 18-5 record, albeit in an association of schools outside Florida’s main governing body, the Florida High School Athletic Association.

Between Downey’s sudden rise and Newman’s steady improvement -- the fifth grader is now averaging more than 12 points, 10 assists and 4 steals per game -- foes have had plenty of motivation not to show up for a game against Downey.

That could change next year, if Downey completes a mulled transition into the FHSAA. Even at the FHSAA’s lowest classification, Downey would be extremely unlikely to find foes willing to give up rather than take on Newman and his teammates.

Until then, the 4-foot-5, 70-pound guard will continue to attract the gaze of all the eyeballs in the room as he cuts to the basket. So long as Downey continues to attract plenty of wins, Newman’s teammates are probably just fine with that.

“He definitely proved us wrong,” Downey junior Jonathan Ferrell told the New York Times of his teammate. “I look up to him now because he’s so much better than me.”

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As the Harlem Shake dance craze continues to take over both the internet and high school sports -- keep an eye on this space Tuesday to see the full extent of the Shake’s influence on prep sports -- one team has felt the full wrath of letting their wild-side impulses get the best of them. Before you click on the version of the Harlem Shake below, please note that there will be some high school players wearing scant clothing at about the 15-second mark. They’re not naked, but they’re not quite fully dressed, either.

As reported by the Journal-News’ high school hockey blog, the Nyack (N.Y.)-Tappan Zee (N.Y.) High boys hockey co-op team forfeited its first round Section I state playoff game against Lakeland (N.Y.)-Panas (N.Y.). While there was no official reason given for the forfeit, there’s little question about what caused the forfeit: A rather racy version of the Harlem Shake, performed by the Nyack-Tappan Zee squad and posted to YouTube during the second week of February.

In fact, if there was any question that the aforementioned video was responsible for the playoff forfeiture, it seemed to be answered by a Nyack-Tappan Zee senior on Twitter.

“We were forfeited from playoffs for a borderline inappropriate video in the locker room of Harlem shake,” Ice Hawks senior forward Corey Aronson tweeted on Friday to a friend, according to the Lo-Hud hockey blog.

You can see a copied version of the YouTube version of Nyack-Tappan Zee’s Harlem Shake above (the original was taken off line) and judge whether you think it’s worthy of a self-imposed playoff forfeiture.

Was the video objectionable? Potentially. Was it done in poor taste? Almost certainly. Was it worthy of mandatory forfeiture of a playoff game after a long season aimed at earning that spot? That’ a tough one.

Clearly the lesson from the video and its subsequent penalty is that teens need to be more careful about what they’re putting online for public consumption. Whether an entire team’s season needs to be ended to ram home that point, at the expense of their teammates, is another matter entirely.

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For the second time in three years tragedy struck Michigan high school basketball immediately after a key late season game. Almost exactly two years after Wes Leonard hit a district title-winning shot for Fennville (Mi.) High and then died on the court, one of the most successful coaches in Michigan collapsed and died shortly after his team racked up another impressive victory on Saturday.

As reported by the Detroit News and a handful of other Michigan outlets, Detroit (Mi.) Consortium High head basketball coach Al Anderson collapsed and died shortly after Consortium’s 81-44 victory against Dayton (Oh.) Dunbar High.

While it may take a number days before an official cause of death is determined, Anderson’s longtime assistant coach Cap Mitchell told the News that the 40-year-old Anderson had suffered from heart trouble for two years, and had a stent implanted within the past year.

The coach apparently collapsed while a postgame meal was being prepared for the team to celebrate the 16^th birthday of one the players on the team.

“Al was in another part of the building and I was told he just dropped,” Mitchell told the News. “He was taken to Henry Ford Hospital and we were told he died around 9 o'clock or so."

Anderson accumulated a career record of 109-28 in six years at Consortium. His 2012-13 squad has been considered one of his finest, with the Cougars rolling to a 13-3 record and emerging as one of the favorites in Michigan’s Class C classification.

While the loss of the near legendary coach may be a shock to Consortium’s system, Mitchell insisted that the team would play on in his memory.

"I don't think we'll stop what we've been doing," Mitchell told the News. "Al was all about the kids and he'd want them to carry on."