He is 12, stands 5-foot-4 and weighs just 120 pounds. He looks like any other kid on a middle school bus. Still, don't let the sixth grader-next-door image fool you: Damon Harge is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the best young high school point guards in the country.

Yes, high school. Despite his age, as highlighted by ESPN.com, Harge is competing at the high school level in North Carolina, and he's torching the opposition. A year after getting national attention for dominating any and all middle school comers -- he averaged 35 points as a fifth grader playing against student athletes three years older than himself -- Harge is now suiting up for Creedmor (N.C.) Christian Faith Center Academy, where he faces off against some of the top prep basketball programs in the county … as a sixth grader.

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"I looked him up and it's hard not to be impressed watching his videos," Christian Faith Center Academy coach Kendrick Williams told ESPN.com of his first exposure to Harge. "I wasn't sure about how that would translate on the varsity level, but I was excited to find out. I just kept thinking 'he's only 12?'"

What may be most incredible about Harge's rocket ride to stardom is how seamlessly it has all come together. A year ago, Harge was still somewhat of an under-the-radar prospect, happily plying his trade on the West Coast. A year later Harge sports YouTube clips with an aggregate audience of more than 3 million views and is widely recognized as the nation's top sixth grader.

Admittedly, that's a lot of hype for any pre-teen to handle. Still, those are the kind of things that happen when a player drops 50 points at a national invitational tournament in front of former number one NBA draft pick John Wall, who immediately emerged as Harge's biggest fan and ally.

"The kid was unguardable," Wall told ESPN.com. "I knew right away he was a star. I just wanted him to continue to work hard.

"All of this is too serious for a 12-year-old kid. He should be concentrating on having fun, but, at the same time, I understand why it's happening. What's he gonna say, 'No thanks, I don't want to be ranked right now?' Plus, I'd be shocked if there's a player that's more skilled than him at his age. It's not wrong and it's not his fault. Basketball isn't the only sport that ranks kids early. It's just the day and age we live in."

Harge is already leaving his impact across a large swath of the basketball portion of that world as it is. Williams, who once coached John Wall and is well acquainted with molding young phenoms, said that the sixth grader's work ethic is what makes him stand out. The 12-year-old wakes up at 4:30 every morning and puts up an average of 6,500 shots per week. "With that high volume of shots the muscle memory is ridiculous," Williams told ESPN.

Across the nation, school districts are cutting back on the athletic department offerings, attempting to slim budgets by limiting the amount of sports they have to subsidize. Yet, in the midst of that fiscally conservative climate, one school in Oklahoma took a diametrically opposed direction with shocking results: It added the most expensive sport it could -- football -- and may have saved the entire school in the process.

Gracemont football team

As reported by Sports Illustrated columnist Melissa Segura, Gracemont (Okla.) High was struggling to attract enough students to maintain a viable base -- the school had a $200,000 budget shortfall and dwindling attendance -- when one of this school's teachers made the radical suggestion that the school start a football program. While football is a staple of most schools across the heartland, Gracemont had never hosted a team in its 100-year history.

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To be fair, even the idea of football at a tiny school like Gracemont could seem almost insane. The school -- which lies approximately 75 minutes from Oklahoma City via Chickasha -- had traditionally had approximately 10 students per graduating class. Do the math, and one comes out with a varsity squad of between 20 and 30 members … if every single male student plays.

For that reason alone, the desperate suggestion to start a football program by teacher Jeremy Scott could have seemed futile or self destructive. Yet, instead of ridicule Scott, one of the district's most important figures -- Gracemont Elementary School Principal Roberta Fulbright -- decided Scott's idea was brilliant. The 69-year-old school board power broker immediately started fundraising, seeing a Gracemont Football program as a what it could be: a saving grace with the power to re-invigorate a flagging school district and, in turn, increase the population of a small American town.

Incredibly, within a matter of months the school built a field, had local citizens construct a press box and -- perhaps most importantly -- Scott had taught the school's entire male population to play football, a task which was trying but surprisingly rewarding for the teacher turned coach because his players had no bad habits to break.

Marlon Dorsey has been in the national headlines over the last couple of years, but the stories have been far from positive. Just last season, Dorsey was in the news for whipping his basketball players with a weight belt, even though corporal punishment has been banned in Jackson (Miss.) Public Schools since 1991.

MarlonDorsey

The story caused a national firestorm that forced Murrah (Miss.) High School to fire Dorsey before reversing course, handing the coach a 25-day suspension and allowing to come back and coach.

As the Clarion-Ledger reported, it didn't take long for Dorsey to make headlines again for another reprimanding one of his players. Less than one year after the whipping incident, Dorsey was reportedly accused of "fussing at a player" following a November game against Yazoo City.

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The incident was then reported to school officials who informed Dorsey of the complaint. Instead of making a big deal out of the issue, the head coach decided to step down until the situation could be resolved.

"In order to not be a distraction, he (Dorsey) has elected to not coach until matters can be rectified with JPS," Dorsey's attorney, Thandi Wade, told the Clarion-Ledger. "He plans to contest all the charges."

The Clarion-Ledger reported that the incidents that occurred last season caused a division within the team, pitting parents against players due to the way Dorsey ran his team.

Despite the way Dorsey punished his players in the past, parents at Murrah have continued to support the coach, even with fresh allegations being made.

"We respect his decision to step down and to not be a distraction to the kids or the program," Gary Love, who heads the team booster, told the Clarion-Ledger.

This is supposed to be the season of forgiveness and patience. Evidently someone forgot to tell that to the Marmonte League in the California Interscholastic Federation's Southern Section.

DeeJay Brown and his mother, Treena Hunter, at South Kent School before he moved to California

As first reported by the Los Angeles Times, the Marmonte League unilaterally rejected a transfer hardship request submitted by Thousand Oaks (Calif.) High basketball coach Richard Endres on behalf of 17-year-old Derrick "Deejay" Brown, whom Endres has taken under his own legal guardianship. While that might be a completely reasonable decision by a league under normal circumstances, Brown's situation is anything but normal.

The teen, who arrived in Thousand Oaks from Brooklyn, N.Y., was the victim of horrific violence in 2009, when his stepfather attempted to kill both Brown and his mother, Treena Hunter, who are pictured above, by stabbing them in the face.

Brown's past and remarkable ability to forgive his stepfather have been chronicled at length by the New York Daily News and a variety of other media outlets.

With his stepfather in jail, Brown spent a year at South Kent School in Connecticut, then decided he needed to start over, so he moved to Southern California. After a season at Simi Valley (Calif.) Stoneridge Prep, where the Brooklyn native was a boarding student, Brown was left with nowhere to go when Endres learned of his precarious situation.

Without thinking twice, the coach did what he thought was right: He took in a teen in need, regardless of who he was on the court. Now, both the player and coach are being punished for what is virtually universally recognized as a truly samaritan act.

As reported by the Times, the Marmonte League principals didn't even let Endres speak at the hearing set up to decide whether or not to approve a waiver of CIF residency requirements which would allow him to play for Thousand Oaks. While Endres wanted to explain why he became Brown's legal guardian, league principals didn't even want to hear his side of the story.

Two coaches from a California state championship football team have found themselves under fire for continuing in their jobs after engaging in activities that would never have been allowed among their players: possessing marijuana.

Santa Margarita assistant football coach Scott Coen

As first reported by the Orange County Register, Santa Margarita (Calif.) High football assistant coaches Sean Coen -- who is pictured at right -- and Robert Hendricks, who coach the team's wide receivers and defensive backs, respectively, both pled guilty to two charges of possession of narcotic substances in Orange County district court.

Where the issue gets more sticky is the timing of the charges against the coaches. According to the Register, the pair were arrested on December 14, 2010 in connection with broader charges of marijuana cultivation at the residence in which both Coen and Hendricks were living. At the time of their arrest, 232 marijuana plants were found in the house, along with complete lighting and watering systems to cultivate the illicit crops.

Those cultivation and possession for sale charges were later reduced to the misdemeanor possession charges both men were eventually faced, but given the amount of marijuana paraphernalia that was found at their house, plenty of suspicion remains that both men were involved in a larger growing operation.

Despite those charges and surrounding circumstances, the two coaches were allowed to participate in Santa Margarita's entire football season, in which the program won both California Interscholastic Southern Section title and subsequent state crown. Clearly, any athletes at the Catholic school who had even been found in possession of marijuana would have been dismissed, so why did legendary Santa Margarita head coach Harry Welch overlook the legal entanglements of his coaches?

Santa Margarita principal Ray Dunne told the Register that the school was aware of the arrests and convictions facing the men -- who will serve in a community work program in lieu of a 90-day jail sentence -- and that they were both disciplined, though Dunne refused to be drawn on what happened to the two coaches.

We've highlighted a couple of nasty high school brawls this year on Prep Rally, but the one that occurred between Baltimore's ConneXions School for the Arts and Washington, D.C.'s Cardozo Academy could top them all.

As Fox-5 in Washington, D.C. and another local outlets reported, a Wednesday night game between ConneXions and Cardozo Academy got out of hand after a couple of questionable calls by the referees started to anger fans in the stands during the second quarter.

With tensions mounting and the game on the verge of going south, an unknown fan came out of the stands and shoved a Cardozo coach, igniting a nasty brawl that lasted for more than a couple minutes.

As you can see from the above YouTube video, things got out of hand in a hurry, as players and fans started to throw punches and chairs during the brawl. You can even see a couple of incidents where fans or players were shoved to the gym floor and kicked repeatedly.

The video also included a shot of a fan throwing another fan onto the floor from the stands in one of the most disgusting acts of the entire brawl. Baltimore police were immediately called to the scene and used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.

All in all, it was a black-eye moment that both schools will not soon forget.

"We could have had better control of our kids," Cardazo AD Bobby Richards told the Washington Post. "It's unfortunate because [a fight] is the type of thing that we try to avoid."

You probably don't know Justise Winslow yet. It might be worth getting to learn the name, especially if he continues to produce incredible feats of athleticism like the preposterous slam you see below.

Winslow, a sophomore for Houston (Texas) St. John's School, was facing off against San Antonio (Texas) Antonian Prep in the annual St. Thomas Tournament in Houston when Winslow simply decided to take over on an explosive drive to the basket. The small forward -- he's currently 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, but is likely to grow in the years ahead -- blew past an Antonian perimeter defender with a slick crossover dribble then took off from the edge of the key and dunked on top of Antonian's tallest post defender.

As you can see, that battle was a pure mismatch. There was only ever going to be one winner, and given the force with which he took off with, there was little doubt that was going to be Winslow, who went on to finish the game with 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Of course, there was a reason why Winslow's totals weren't even more impressive than that, and if you watch the video above closely you can see why. After finishing the slam, Winslow stared down his "dunk victim", promptly earning a technical foul from the nearby referee. Then, to cap things off, as he walked back up the court, Winslow offered up a salute to the St. John's fans in attendance, an act of perceived braggadocio that earned him an instant second technical and an ejection from the game.

Thirty seconds, one enormous slam and two technicals. That's a busy half a minute for a top prospect.

Naturally, Winslow is still a young, developing player, and he's likely to get a lot more attention from the top high school programs in the country in the years ahead. As one of the 5-star recruits in the Class of 2014, Winslow is practically guaranteed to attract a bright spotlight for the remainder of his high school career, no matter where it takes him.

It would have been easy for Jacob Rainey to get down on himself. After all, the senior quarterback had undergone the kind of nightmare transformation that most would dare not even let enter their thoughts; a top recruit, Rainey suffered a bad break and eventually had to have his leg amputated.

Woodberry Forest quarterback Jacob Rainey

Yet the Woodberry Forest (Va.) School quarterback refused to dwell on what he had lost, and in doing so has been the pillar that inspired the school and community at large to return to normal.

"I don't know why me," Rainey told the Associated Press. "I've never really asked myself that question. I think that would just make me feel sorry for myself, and that's the last thing I want to do.

"I feel like if I was in their shoes, I'd feel awkward about it and stuff, like talking about it, so I kind of joke about it. I mean, it is what it is. I can't change anything. There's no point [complaining] about it, so I think it makes everyone more comfortable about it if I just joke about it like it's alright. That's how it's always been."

The teen's story has touched many, including a couple of sports stars. In fact, Rainey is off to spend time with Tim Tebow and Clay Matthews, with the former Heisman winner openly saying that he is inspired by the teen, inverting the more traditional role model relationship.

"What an amazing kid and what an amazing outlook that he has," Tebow said of the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Rainey, whose playing style was frequently compared to Tebow. "I'm so proud to have the opportunity to spend time with him and his family. We're very excited about that."