Fake Cheerleader Gets Very Real Year in Jail - In a follow-up to a story we ran last year, Tasha Marie Mitchell, 20, has been sentenced to one year in prison after being convicted on four felony counts of obtaining money by false pretenses in Virginia. What did Mitchell do? She went door-to-door in Fredricksburg, VA telling neighbors that she was Riverbend High School cheerleader or soccer player and asked people for "donations." She's neither. But wait, there's more: Mitchell is also linked to similar scams in California, Oregon, Texas, Maryland and Georgia, but has not gone to court on those charges. She's one cheerleader who "gets around" . . . and not in the good way! (Fredricksburg.com)

#36! Former Cheerleading Coach Pleads Guilty to Sexual Battery Charges From Arrest Back to 2006, Will Not Serve Time in Jail

#35! Headline of the Month? HS Football Coach Charged With Attempted Statutory Rape After Failing Three Times to Have Sex With Female Student, 16, at His Mobile Home - No, she didn't fight him off three times, he just couldn't uh, "finish the play" as they say in football. According to police, Scott D. Ballard, 23, managed somehow to coerce a female student, 16, to come alone to his trailer not once, but twice and according to the alleged victim "Ballard wasn’t able to perform adequately to complete the act." Ouch! Undeterred, Ballard allegedly managed to get the girl into a car another time but also failed to perform that time as well. (KY3)

Female HS Teacher Resigns After Being Caught Holding Hands With Boy During Field Trip - No, really. Holding hands. Oh, and some naughty talk.

French Couple Arrested for Taking Racy Naked Pictures in Trenches of Canadian WWI Memorial

HS Wrestling Hazing Leads to Criminal Charges: Cops Say Upperclassmen "Got a Little Carried Away"  When They Bound Frosh With Duct Tape and Posed Them in "Compromising Positions" -  Ya think?  Nine wrestlers at Asheboro High School (North Carolina) and their former coach now facing criminal charges after an investigation revealed a team initiation went too far. According to police, the boys took part in a freshman initiation that involved the new members of the team being bound with tape and then posed in compromising positions. To make matters worse, these events--which took place OVER THREE DAYS LAST MONTH in the team room--were caught on cell phone cameras which cops quickly confiscated and are now using as evidence against those accused. The coach, who was also reportedly fired, claims he saw was going on, but ordered the older wrestlers stop and then made them run for 30 minutes . . . but did not report the incident. (News 14)

More HS Wrestling Fun: Coach Resigns After Being Accused of Biting Wrestler on the Leg - Details aren't real clear on this one, but apparently Mike Marshall, first year wrestling coach at Central Cambria High School (PA) has resigned after he reportedly bit a team member in the thigh. This after Marshall complained that the wrestlers on his squad suffered from a  “lack of discipline.” Marshall may also have to worry about losing his full time job: as a $31,000-a-year juvenile probation officer with Cambria County’s court system. (Tribune-Democrat)

#34! Even More Wrestling Trouble! Coach/Gym Teacher Arrested for Alleged Sex With Teen

#33! Get a Room! HS Soccer Coach, 37, Caught in Parked Car With Female Student, 17

#32! College soccer coach accused of soliciting a person who he believed to be a 13-year-old girl online for sexual purposes. Why don't you have a seat over here?

Not Quite Tasered by Cops, But Close! - Maybe we should expand that category to "Tasered OR Pepper Sprayed by Cops"? If we did, then former NFL defensive lineman Alonzo "Don't Spray Me Bro!" Spellman would be on the list. According to police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, they were called to a disturbance at a convenience store and when they arrived Spellman took off in his car. After a brief chase, cops were able to pull him over, but for 20 minutes he refused to get out of his car. That's when they called on Mr. Pepper Spray and shortly thereafter they arrested Spellman for eluding, assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, resisting arrest and driving without a license. (Philly.com)

Back in the News: BadJocks Mentioned in U of Michigan Student Newspaper Article - Facebooking the wolverines: Athletic Department checks student-athletes' profiles once per semester

BadJocks Update: Father/Jabba the Hut Denies Threatening to Shoot Little League Coach Over Son's Lack of PT - A story we brought you last summer has gone to trial with Little League coach Noe Ambriz testifying on the witness stand that Wade Campbell (pictured above, uh, left) the father of one of his players, threatened to "shoot him like a dog" for not playing his son, Austin, aged 12, enough. For his part, Campbell--who's charged with making terroristic threats--admitted on the stand to being angry when he had said, "Send this guy back to Mexico," after he was kicked out of the dugout, and then muttered "Get a job," when Ambriz's relatives glared at him in the bleachers, but denies the shooting part. He did admit, under stressful cross-examination, that he did freeze Han Solo and put Princess Leia in that skimpy slave girl bikini. (Okay we made that last part up, but it does kinda follow, right?) (Star Tribune)

Fight During First Half of HS Soccer Game Results in Two Players Being Kicked Off the Team - Did we mention it was a girls soccer team? (HMB Review)

Readers Respond to Georgia Head Shaving Hazing Story - Since no one at UGA or the media saw fit to respond to our open letter to President Dr. Michael Adams (scroll down), I thought I would let some of our BadJocks readers have the last word on this issue . . . for now.

From Tim Williams:
I agree with your claim that the universities will not punish money-making sports players that haze underclassmen. These sports are just too important to the identity of the university for them to be punished.
These sports bring in money but they also bring in talent and other potential students who want to go to big name universities. The Seattle Times recently had an article about the University of Washington football team in 2000 and how the university didn't even punish a player whose bloody fingerprint was found at a crime scene did not even get suspended for a game. Football in particular is an "untouchable" sport where the athletes can get away with almost anything.

From Roger Cruse:
I enjoy reading the reports on your website. I check the site regularly, but don't you think this head shaving agenda you have is quite nit-picky. Aren't there any better stories you can cover? Your making a fuss over shaved heads of all things. In high school the incoming freshman for the baseball team shaved their heads. We weren't forced but it was tradition for the freshman to do so. I had never shaved my head until then. Now periodically I love to pull out the clippers and start over and recently I have kept it buzzed. It's a haircut man not a beatdown just for the hell of it. It's almost like a status symbol. People know who you are if its part of the sports tradition. People know your on the team and they come up and ask you about the team or whatever. If the kids were getting body slammed if they said no then I can see your case but this is insignificant.

From John Gardner:
To whom it may concern:
First off, I don't believe that head-shaving in and of itself causes permanent psychological damage and/or scarring. (I'd better not - I'm bald myself!) However, as has been pointed out, it's not the head-shaving that is the issue. It is the idea of hazing that is the issue, and the question of whether this action constitutes it.
The definition of hazing, as stated in the very tough language of the pamphlet, is not whether it's humiliating, and not whether those involved are willing (or even enthusiastic) participants, and not whether the actions involved are part of the school's "traditions."
The idea is that a team should be unifiied... that, once the new members have gone through the tryouts and been selected, that they should be as accepted as the ones who have gotten through the tryouts for the last four years straight. Hazing runs counter to that ideal - it subjects the newest members to some process or other that seems to suggest that they still haven't quite earned their places on the team until they've gone through that ritual.
The problem is that it offers all kinds of opportunities for abuse... that someone who is good enough to make the team, but happens to be unpopular with his new teammates for some reason (ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, left- or right-handedness, what have you) could find themselves with a nastier version of the ritual than the "orthodox" ritual imposed on the more mainstream recruits. If the administration of a school has had the courage to print out a pamphlet that spells out, pretty clearly, what is and isn't hazing, yet doesn't have the courage to actually implement its policies, then what good is it?

To read the original storie about the UGA Head Shaving Hazing, click here.

BadJocks First: We Call Out a University President - We didn't want to, but given the turn the recent Head Shavin' Hazin'  has taken at the University of Georgia (see stories below), we felt we had to. 
Now that it appears that the Bulldog football team enjoys playing amateur barber to the incoming freshmen, we were certain that the whole thing would get swept under the table by UGA. What to do? Call out the President, Dr. Michael Adams, with an open letter. Dr. Adams, some of you may know, also sits on the NCAA's Executive Committee, which recently took a bold step toward preventing hazing . . . by putting out a brochure on the subject. Wow! Bold move there NCAA! 
We feel the Georgia situation is EXACTLY why the NCAA should have an anti-hazing policy: schools will not punish the money-making sports by themselves. Georgia would no sooner punish its highly ranked football team than UCLA would take action against its men's basketball team, even if they caught the upperclassmen beating the frosh senseless. They'd likely do a "thorough investigation" and conclude that it was not hazing, but an "error in judgment." 
Do we expect to get a serious response from Dr. Adams ? Not really, but we had to try.  Read the letter for yourself here.
Comments? If you send them, we'll post them here. BadJocks@Yahoo.com

Foul! 2007 HS Girls Basketball "Player of the Year" Arrested on Theft Charges After Items Missing From Locker Room After Game - We're still not 100% sure what happened here based on the original story, but we do know that some personal items were reported missing from the locker room during a recent girls basketball game between Palm Bay High and Viera High. When the smoke cleared, the person accused of theft was Palm Bay High girls basketball star Katie Kingfield who was charged with two counts of felony theft and two misdemeanor counts of disrupting a school function. Kingfield isn't just any HS basketball player: she was FLORIDA TODAY's Girls Basketball Player of the Year last season after leading the Pirates to a 26-2 record. (Florida Today)

Cop Fired for Trying to Influence Outcome of Son's HS Football Playoff Game - This is either a case of an officer of the law really, really trying to make sure that the rules get enforced, or the father of a high school football player who was looking for any little angle that might help his boy win a state title. All this takes place in Wisconsin, where a 21-year veteran of the Dane County Sheriff's Office, Lt. Shawn Haney, allegedly passed around a report describing a Sept. 30 underage drinking party attended by a number of Waunakee High School football players. What's the big deal with that? About that time, DeForest High School was playing Waunakee in the State Quarterfinals. Oh, and Haney's son just happens to play for DeForest High School. Haney's bosses now say he should have excused himself from the case as soon as he saw the conflict, but since he didn't, and allegedly compounded things by send the report to the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletics Association to complain just days before the big game, they fired him. Haney's lawyer, Lester "Don't Call Me Piney" Pines, seems perplexed by the whole thing adding, "Honest to God, everybody has to step back and take a deep breath. We're talking about high school football here. I mean, really, come on. This seems so small-town to me." Yes, yes it does, which is exactly why everyone else thinks it happened. Oh, and just in case anyone cares, DeForest defeated Waunakee 27-13 in the quarter finals, but then lost the state championship game. (AP) Thanks to Frank M. for the link!

Facebook Strikes Again! 13 Eden Prairie, Minnesota HS Students Suspended After Posting Pictures of Themselves Boozing on Social Networking Site - Nearly two years after the Northwestern women's soccer team (and others) were busted for posting incriminating photos on public websites, young people are still at it. This time it's HS jocks in Eden Praire who proudly posted pictures on Facebook of themselves boozing it up. That apparently is a violation of Minnesota State High School League rules. My favorite quote from the article comes from Technical High School head football coach Gregg Martig who said, "If you're dumb enough to do something illegal and post it on the Internet, then you deserve to be suspended." (St. Cloud Times)

#31! Former Teacher/Coach arrested on charges connected to a sex abuse investigation involving a student

More Hazing Insanity! Bowdoin College Says Women's Squash Team (Yes, the Freakin' Squash Team!) Committed "Mild to Moderate Hazing" - In what has to be the best example of academic overkill in reporting something simple, the folks at tiny Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine have spent three months looking at pictures of young women in costumes and some beer and came up with a lengthy report that concludes that what happened was only "mild to moderate hazing." You can almost hear the upper-crusters sniffing as they say that, as if their girls couldn't possibly resort to plain old gutter class hazing. And God forbid! They started to investigate the highly regarded sailing team and couldn't even bear to finish the report on that! Congratulations Bowdoin College for making us all feel better about getting drunk and shaving someone's head while he vomits! (The Bowdoin Orient - The Oldest Continuously Published College Weekly in the U.S.!)

#30! College Coach Sex Scandal? - Oh well, we'll count this one in our total because the Eastern Arizona College men’s basketball coach accused of sex with girl, 16, who was in High School when they met. (EA Courier)

#29! Volleyball Coach Accused Of Sex With Female Player, 13, Gets 3 to 6 Years in Prison