When a high school coach receives an offer to join a collegiate program, he nearly always jumps at the chance. Given that, the decision by David Adelman, the coach at Portland (Ore.) Lincoln High, to leave his post for a position as an assistant coach on an NBA staff is more than understandable, except for one thing: He's leaving for a job in a locked out league with few prospects of an immediate return to action.

Lincoln basketball coach David Adelman

For that reason and that reason alone, Adelman's decision to accept an assistant's position with the Minnesota Timberwolves -- where his father, Rick Adelman, is scheduled to be the head coach when the NBA eventually resumes -- is a bit of an odd one.

As reported by the Portland Oregonian, Adelman built up a reservoir of respect among the Oregon basketball community by building Lincoln into a program of consistent winners.

Across his five years at the helm, the Cardinals went 83-53, finishing on the doorstep of a Class 6A state title in 2009 and winning the fourth-place game in the 2011 Class 6A state tournament. They also won the Portland Interscholastic district's title in 2006-07, 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Whether or not all that success will transfer over to the NBA level remains to be seen. How long until anyone gets to guide that is equally in question, with no end to the ongoing lockout currently in sight.

A Michigan high school has had to rally for emergency donations to play its homecoming game on Friday after thieves broke into its field house and made off with most of the team's new varsity football gear.

Frederick Douglass Academy football

According to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, Detroit (Mich.) Frederick Douglass College Preparatory Academy football coaches discovered that thieves broke into their school's field house over the weekend, taking half of the team's helmets, shoulder pads and other protecting padding in the process.

The lost equipment sent the program into a crisis mode just days before its 2011 homecoming game, with players forced to practice without pads and coaches scrambling to land donations or extra equipment from other schools.

"They took 20 helmets, 20 shoulder pads and a box of other pads," Douglass football coach Al Demps told the Detroit News. "I have 40 kids on my team. We need to find equipment. We're working on it now.

"We've had some donations coming in. Coaches from [Detroit] Allen Academy said they have 15 to 20 new shoulder pads they can lend me. And they might have some other pads. We're reaching out to whomever we can. We'll go without pads today [at practice]."

Demps insists that the team will play its game on Friday as scheduled, though it may take a near miracle for the school to outfit all 40 varsity players in time. In addition to the padding being donated by Allen Academy, the Free Press reported that the owner of a local Ford dealership had stepped up to donate $3,000 toward purchasing new gear for the team.

That will go a long way toward helping a program that was already facing a tough road in 2011 stay on the field. The emphasis in that last sentence belongs on the word "road." Douglass is playing its entire season schedule on the road because the school's home field was deemed unfit for play. On Friday, Douglass will play its own homecoming game against Detroit (Mich.) Denby High … at Denby High.

Everything was set up for a great homecoming for Elk Grove (Calif.) football coach Chris Nixon. The Thundering  Herd head man was leading his team into a game against Nevada Union (Calif.) High, the school where Nixon had played his own high school football.

Even better, they were playing against Nevada Union during Union's homecoming. A homecoming for a homecoming. Perfect.

Elk Grove coach Chris Nixon

According to the Sacramento Bee's Joe Davidson, everything leading up to the game was going splendidly until the public address announcer made reference to Nixon's days as a player at Nevada Union.

After making the effort to note his connection to the school -- a nice touch, all agreed -- the public address announcer mentioned that Nixon was the son of a former state champion Nevada Union football coach, whom the announcer named as "the late Marshall Nixon."

There was only one problem with that statement: Marshall Nixon is still alive and well.

"My dad's still alive -- I think," Chris Nixon told the Bee. "He was in the stands."

Luckily for all involved, both Nixons took the slight snubbing of the elder Nixon's vibrant health with a grain of salt. The younger coaching Nixon was certainly in a pleasant mood to talk about the miscue after his team rolled to a  23-7 victory, its fifth in a still young season.

A scandal is brewing in upstate New York, where a junior varsity football team made a stop at a cemetery after a dispiriting loss. What they may or may not have done at the cemetery now has parents and administrators up in arms, even if they can't definitively confirm what actually took place.

Marcellus junior varsity football coach Jim Marsh

According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, the Marcellus (N.Y.) High junior varsity football team stopped at a cemetery after a loss to Skaneateles on Saturday. While no one is questioning the fact that the team bus did stop at a cemetery, one complaint reportedly made to Marcellus administrators claimed that the team members were forced to lie on graves in an attempted teaching method by junior varsity coach Jim Marsh, who is pictured in the center of the photo above, about how they should never give up.

"The bus did stop at the cemetery," Marcellus Superintendent Craig Tice told the Post-Standard. "We're talking to the kids, the coaches and the parents. We're still trying to collect information, definitely."

The Marcellus school district was to have Tice call Prep Rally to discuss the the incident, but that call was not made as of this publication.

Until all that information is collected, it may be impossible to accurately ascertain precisely what happened. In the meantime, parents of the players -- and some of the players themselves -- are up in arms about what they feel was an inappropriate educational technique.

While the district is not yet confirming that the students physically laid on graves, two sources spoke to the Post-Standard and offered this depiction of what happened after Saturday's game:

The sources said Marsh, also an English teacher at the high school, ordered the team bus to pull over near the cemetery. He then asked the roughly two dozen players to get out and lay on the graves.

The players rested there for several minutes while Marsh preached about the importance of playing hard, and how those buried underneath them would cherish the opportunity to trade places with the players and fight to win.

Marsh then urged the Mustangs to arise from the dead and bring their season back to life.

When Friday's football game between Hunter-Kinard-Tyler (S.C.) High and Calhoun County (S.C.) High (members of which are pictured below) was delayed for two days, few people (if any) would have predicted what caused the postponement.

Calhoun County football team

Weather? Not this time. A power outage? Nope, the electricity was flowing just fine.

Instead, the matchup between two small South Carolina schools was delayed because of a massive infestation of fire ants on Hunter-Kinard-Tyler's home field. After inspecting the field before the game's opening kickoff, football referee Steve Hook discovered nearly 20 active fire ant mounds on the surface of play.

According to the Associated Press, Hook then consulted with the rest of his officiating crew and decided that unless the fire ant piles were removed, the game couldn't continue as scheduled. That got Hunter-Kinard-Tyler officials in action, with some actively attempting to dig out the ant piles and others trying to kill the piles by pouring salt on them.

Yet those methods were to no avail, and a fellow fan attending the game who offered to provide fire ant poison couldn't step in to save the game either, leading to a two-day postponement while the fire ant threat abated.

It's a common exaggeration to say that a star is (or was) a one-man team. On Friday, for one school in Oregon, that was almost accurate.

As brought to Prep Rally's attention by blog reader Joe Dominey and reported by the Daily Astorian, Astoria (Ore.) High quarterback Conor Harber somehow had a hand in every one of his team's 52 points in a 52-26 victory against Cottage Grove (Ore.) High. The senior passer threw for five touchdowns, ran for two on his own, and then converted all seven extra points to boot (no pun intended).

As if that wouldn't be enough to tire him out, Harber also connected on a 40-yard field goal to round out his rather eventful night, and push his team's point total to 52.

Or, in another way of looking at it, he made the score: Conor Harber 52, Cottage Grove 26.

You can see Harber passing, running and kicking his way through the Lions defense in the game's highlights above (he's wearing number 11 in purple). Just to make sure he kept busy, Harber also handled all of Astoria's punting and kickoff duties, too. Given how often he was celebrating in the end zone, that called for a whopping nine kickoffs and two punts.

It would follow that Harber's single-game statistics from the Cottage Grove victory are gaudy … and they are. The senior completed 16-of-22 passes for 263 yards and five touchdowns, he carried the ball 12 times for 182 yards and two touchdowns -- including the 98-yard touchdown sneak you see at the 3:15 mark of the video above -- and connected on all of his aforementioned kicks. Harber also added 5 yards worth of punt returns on a lone return (he fair caught another punt for no return).

That's 450 all-purpose yards, seven touchdowns and a whole lot of offensive action.

When high school schedules are set up, most big football games are slated for Friday nights, for good reason. In addition to the pervasive notion that fall Friday nights belong to high school football, Friday also provides the easiest day for schools to gather their players in one place with ease, all without affecting their ability to spend time on their studies before the next school day. In fact, there's little downside, if any, to setting up a game on most Friday nights.

West Hills Chaminade College Prep football

However, this Friday night is an exception because of one of the most holy holidays on the Jewish calendar. And now, because one Catholic school with a sizable Jewish population overlooked the fact that Yom Kippur falls on a Friday in 2011 it is facing a key matchup without a handful of important players.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, West Hills (Calif.) Chaminade College Prep scheduled its annual meeting against Catholic rival Sherman Oaks (Calif.) Notre Dame Prep for Friday, Sep. 30. By the time the parents of a Jewish player finally notified Chaminade coach Ed Croson that the game fell on a high holiday it was too late to re-schedule the game, so Croson decided his team would have to play without their Jewish teammates who decide to witness the holiday as they would traditionally.

If there were only one player, that wouldn't be such an issue. The problem is that Chaminade has a sizable core of Jewish students among its ranks, with some 100 members of the student body declaring themselves to be Jewish. As one might predict, more than one of those 100 competes for the school's football team, meaning that the Eagles will have to make due with short numbers.

Most other Southern California games involving any number of Jewish players have reportedly been moved to Thursday, greatly altering the traditional high school football weekend lineup.

Parents often scold their children for not being careful about what they write on Facebook. In Tennessee, two star offensive linemen can now turn the table on their own mother after she inadvertently forced their team to vacate three victories from earlier in the 2011 season.

Ryan and Rodney Belasic playing for Perry County

According to the Nashville Tennessean, Perry County (Tenn.) High offensive linemen Rodney Belasic (pictured below and wearing number 75 above) and Ryan Belasic (wearing number 60) transferred in to the school from Henry County (Tenn.) High, where they spent the earlier seasons in their high school career.

However, that transfer has now been rejected after Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association officials learned that the entire Belasic family does not reside in Perry County, a prerequisite for eligibility in the state.

Interestingly, it's how the TSSAA learned that part of the family was still residing in Henry County that has garnered the most attention. According to TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress, the Belasics' mother scolded her sons on Facebook after they left their room in a disorderly state when they departed for a school week in Perry County.

Here's how Childress explained the situation to the Tennessean:

"But the mother actually works in Henry County, and she posted on her Facebook page that she sent the kids back to Perry County for the week and that she would not see them again until Friday night," Childress said. "Then, later on her Facebook page, she posted, 'How can two boys mess up their room as badly as they do when they're only here on Saturday and Sunday?'"

That comment about living there on Saturday and Sunday tipped the TSSAA off to the Belasics' dual residence, and after a brief investigation the organization learned that the Belasics' mother still worked and resided in Henry County.

Perry County offensive lineman Rodney Belasic

Because part of the family was still residing in the player's original district, it was ruled that they should not have transferred to a new school until after their mother moved on from the area as well, leaving the two offensive linemen ineligible to play for Perry County.

For his part, Perry County football coach Michael Harrison apologized for the attention brought on the program by the two brothers' ineligibility.

"We are sorry that this investigation happened and that the two players were deemed ineligible," Harrison told the Tennessean via email. "We hope to put this investigation behind us and move forward."