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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Boys basketball
Joel Grindle has resigned as the assistant principal at Tippecanoe Valley to take the boys basketball coaching job at Plymouth.
Grindle had been the assistant principal at Valley for the last two years.
Grindle takes over a Plymouth program that went 2-20 last season. Coach Ryan Bales subsequently resigned to take the athletic director job at Northridge.
Grindle is a 1999 Plymouth grad. Plymouth won four sectionals and two regionals during his prep playing career. He was the leading scorer on the 1999 Plymouth team that went 18-6 and won a sectional title.
Grindle had previous head coaching stints at Argos (2008-10) and North Montgomery (2010-16). He taught but did not coach at Plymouth from 2016-19 before taking the Valley assistant principal position.
Grindle identifies himself as “Head Varsity Basketball Coach @ Plymouth High School” in his Twitter biography.
Seven Rochester, two Valley athletes honored at TRC Awards Banquet
Seven senior Rochester athletes earned honors at the TRC Awards Banquet May 12, including Grant McCarter, who won three different awards.
McCarter won the Scholar Athlete Award, the Distinguished Academic Honor Award and the Mental Attitude Award.
Hannah Houston also won multiple awards, taking the Scholar Athlete and Mental Attitude awards.
Other recipients of the Scholar Athlete Award included Calen Campbell, Carlee Blackburn, Mya Musselman and Kristianna Lingenfelter.
Quin Stesiak also won the Distinguished Academic Honor Award.
Tippecanoe Valley’s Kaitlin Neese and Payton Mills also won the Mental Attitude Award.
To qualify for the Mental Attitude Award, the athlete must be nominated by their coach or principal and must excel in “mental attitude, athletic ability, scholarship and leadership.:
To qualify for the Distinguished Academic Honor Award, the athlete must have made the Academic All-Conference list in five of the six sports seasons during their junior and senior years.
To qualify for the Scholar Athlete Award, the athlete must be a varsity letter winner and in the top 5% of their class.
IHSAA mandates 2 new courses for coaches
The IHSAA has introduced new courses on protecting students from abuse and student mental health and suicide prevention. A coach must retake these courses every two years to maintain their coaching accreditation.
Indiana law already required coaches to take courses on concussions, heat illness and prevention and sudden cardiac arrest.
The National Federation of State High School Associations offers all courses.
The IHSAA Executive Committee approved the additional courses by a 17-2 vote.
According to Rule 7 of the IHSAA bylaws, any paid or volunteer coach must be rostered weith the IHSAA prior to having any athletic contact with a student.
IHSAA defines Emerging, Recognized Sports
The IHSAA clarified at its May 3 Board meeting the determination for what is an Emerging and a Recognized Sport.
The Board may designate a sport as Emerging if 20 schools currently sponsor that sport, suggest specific rules and 10 letters of commitment are submitted from member schools that currently sponsor or intend to sponsor a program in their school.
The IHSAA may designate a sport as Recognized and offer a state tournament if, after going through the Emerging Sport process, 150 or more member schools – with a minimum of 40 from each of the IHSAA’s three districts – have sponsored a full program and participated for two consecutive years.
NFHS allows standing forward takeoffs in diving
The NFHS approved standing forward takeoffs in high school diving at its March 21-23 meeting, effective in the 2021-22 school year.
According to Rule 9-5-2, “the diver will assume a starting position that includes an upright head and body with arms straight and in a position of the diver’s choice. The diver may move the arms to various preparatory positions provided there is no attempt to start the dive.”
“The standing forward takeoff is a critical part of the educational process in teaching new dives,” Sandy Searcy, NFHS director of sports and liaison to the NFHS Swimming and Diving Rules Committee, said in a statement. “This provision allows divers to participate in competition sooner, even if they have not mastered all parts of the dive, and it encourages growth in the sport.”
The NFHS also passed a rule that permits competitors, for religious reasons, to wear suits that provide full body coverage without obtaining prior state association authorization.
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