One of the most respected and decorated high school coaches in Ohio is being found accountable for thousands of dollars of gate receipts which went missing following a game against a Canadian team in September. If he can't show where the money mysteriously went, he'll even have to re-pay it himself.
As reported by the Dayton Daily News, Huber Heights (Ohio) Wayne football coach Jay Minton -- who has helped mold the likes of current Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller -- is being held responsible for $4,176 in missing gate receipts from the team's September 9 game against London (Ont.) Sir Frederick Banting's School, which Wayne won by a 58-19 score. The Daily News reported that Minton, who also serves as the school's athletic director, will be forced to re-pay the missing funds in full unless he can show precisely where the money went via some sort of a paper trail.
To this point, that evidence has been anything but forthcoming, leaving Minton to deal with the real possibility that he could face the indignity of having to lose a chunk of his annual coaching stipend to make up for sheer incompetence or theft. Either way, it doesn't reflect well on the Wayne athletic department.
"This is probably, indirectly, one of the toughest things I've been involved with. I didn't have any access to that [money] or touch that or anything. But it's under this department. I am responsible to make sure that money is back in there.
"There's $4,176 floating out there. Was it taken out of this office? Was it taken by someone else? We're not 100 percent certain."
For his part, Huber Heights Superintendent Bill Kirby said he feels sorry for Minton because he knows that the coach didn't directly handle the money himself. Still, with the budget for public school districts nationwide as tight as ever, the school had to get the funding back somewhere, and Minton is being deemed as the most responsible party.
There's no indication that the financial predicament could presage an early departure from the program for Minton, who has been the head coach at Wayne for more than a decade and has served as athletic director for the past six school years.
Still, it could serve as a relatively undeserved black mark for a sterling career of a man who consistently places his teams in the running for state titles each November, an achievement as respected as any other in a football-mad state like Ohio.
Want more on the best stories in high school sports? Visit RivalsHigh or connect with Prep Rally on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.