A northwest Indiana high school basektball team was cited by the Indiana High School Athletic Assocation for a series of violations, leading to the reported firing of the school’s athletic director and girls basketball coach.
The Hammond High School Wildcats were coming off a 7-10 season, applying for entry in the 3A state tournament when state officials said egregious violations were found and the school was forced to take action.
The most serious of the eight violations handed down to the Hammond High Athletic program came after officials discovered one girls varsity basketball player was not enrolled at the school. She attended the “career center” nearby, but was a Morton High student.
Hammond administrators discovered the problem during the application process, prompting a full investigation by IHSAA.
That investigation discovered two athletes were playing without academic eligibility and students with incomplete physicals or consent forms were also allowed to play.
"We rely on our adults for guidance. There should have been some better leadership,” Bobby Vox, head of the IHSAA, said. “Yet students and parents also did not ask enough questions. There's fault all the way around."
The IHSAA said the school’s athletic director was let go last week, and the girls’ basketball coach is also out of a job.
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The girls’ basketball program is not on probation, however, and the team can still head to Calumet for the tournament Tuesday. Still, varsity athletes without qualifying grades won’t be allowed to play and the student who did not attend the school also cannot play.
The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
