The Needham (Mass.) High school senior girls soccer players called it an "initiation ritual." Needham Principal Jonathan Pizzi called it hazing, and suspended them. When the father of one of the girls who was hazed stepped up to point out that the suspension would force the girls to miss the MIAA state soccer tournament for an act the hazed girls agreed to participate in, Pizzi wouldn't budge.

Those were the string of events that brought Pizzi and the aforementioned father to a Massachusetts court room, where on Tuesday a Norfolk (Mass.) County judge faced a decision that would determine whether five Needham seniors would get another crack at the state soccer playoffs.

[Rewind: Player seriously hurt in cream pie attack]

Justice Barbara Dortch-Okara quickly decided they would not, as reported in the Boston Herald.

In a two-page decision filed this morning in Dedham Superior Court, Justice Barbara A. Dortch-Okara said Principal Jonathan Pizzi "has complied with or is in the process of

College football fans are often up in arms about the Bowl Championship Series' bizarre twists and turns, usually directing their ire at how BCS rankings are affected by non-human polls. As bad as college football's championship process may be, it's nothing compared to a new system being used by the Oregon School Activities Association. It's a complicated power-ranking formula which this year put a one-loss team ahead of an undefeated conference champion ... which was the only team to beat the higher-seeded team.

According to the Portland Oregonian, the school most aggrieved by the new OSAA power rankings is Sherwood, which pounded fellow Northwest Oregon Conference foe Wilsonville, 55-28 on Oct. 1, only to see Wilsonville be given a No. 1 seed while Sherwood settled for a No. 2 seed.

"If we look at the ranking system as it is right now, of course people are going to have questions," OSAA assistant executive director Brad Garrett told the Oregonian. "The reality is, we need to wait

Abilene (Texas) High star running back Hershel Sims has gained plenty of respect with his tough, explosive running that frequently turns dead-end plays into breakaways. Yet the senior's most eye-opening moment this year came without a helmet on, when the Oklahoma State commitment opened up about the searing child abuse he and his siblings suffered through in their youth.

According to BigCountryHomepage.com, Sims and his brother endured one episode where they were tied down flat, with their wrists and feet bound to their bunk beds and a door handle, keeping the brothers prone while their stepfather beat them severely. At just 6 or 7 years old (the running back says he can't remember which), the Sims brothers were forced to endure what commonly constitutes torture.

"He just whooped us nonstop," Sims told BigCountryHomepage.com. "He took a break and came back. He used an extension cord and his fist. That went on for almost a week and a half."

In fact, the beatings were so severe that they

Female football coaches have been getting lots of attention this fall, primarily because they're women coaching an all male sport. While Natalie Randolph and Amy Arnold deserve plenty of credit for taking on a challenge and defying stereotypes in the process, another female coach of a male sport is on the verge of leading her team to a state championship, and her exploits have flown completely under the radar.

According to an article by Burlington (Vt.) Free Press contributor Shawn Corrow, BFA-Fairfax (Vt.) coach Katie Mack could become the first woman to coach a boys team to a state title if the Bullets pull out a win in the Division III boys soccer final on Tuesday. It's currently unknown if other women have coached boys soccer teams to state titles elsewhere, but it seems a safe assumption that Mack would be among a very small cadre to have achieved the feat, at worst.

"I don't really think of it," Mack told the Free Press of being a woman coaching a boys team. "It wasn't my goal to

For last Friday's East L.A. Classic, Nike spent some $100,000 outfitting traditional rivals Garfield (Calif.) High and Roosevelt (Calif.) High with brand new, state of the art uniforms and equipment. Garfield was given uniforms in the school's traditional blue and white colors while Roosevelt emerged clad in a new all-black get up.

While Roosevelt's look was a more noticeable design change, there was one big problem with it: The all-black uniforms violated California Interscholastic Federation L.A. City Section rules, which could lead to the game being officially ruled a forfeit.

As the Los Angeles Times explains, the L.A. City Section requires that all schools wear uniforms that incorporate only that school's official colors. For Roosevelt, that's cardinal, blue and gold. Since black isn't on that list, the new uniforms from Nike violate the code, making them illegal and throwing any results from games in which they were used into question.

Since Garfield won Friday's matchup 13-3, a

Last month, Prep Rally wrote about a high school cheerleader in Texas who was kicked off her school's squad after she refused to cheer for an athlete she had accused of raping her. With the player in question, Rakheem Bolton, having pled guilty to sexual assault and the cheerleader in question now graduated from Silsbee (Texas) High, it seemed likely that the case was destined to fade away quietly.

Instead, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the cheerleader in question is fighting for her rights even if courts can no longer put her back on the Silsbee team. After a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the Silsbee school district's decision to kick the sexually assaulted cheerleader off the team, the cheerleader and her family decided to appeal the ruling by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"What I want out of the whole thing is for somebody to admit they were wrong," the assaulted cheerleader told the Chronicle.

By launching a formal appeal against the

If a middle school quarterback sneak has provided the best trick play of the 2010 season, which has been the biggest flop? That may be impossible to tell, but the video you see below from Friday's game between Watauga (N.C.) High and St. Stephens (N.C.) High has to be a serious contender.

The player you see doing handsprings just behind the line of scrimmage is Watauga senior placekicker Cam Haas, who lined up as a wide receiver along the left side of the line on a two-point conversion. The point-after attempt was being attempted from the 18-yard line after penalties pushed the Pioneers back. Before the ball was snapped, Haas started as if he was going to shift in motion like a traditional receiver, then spontaneously began a series of handsprings, eventually stopping after his fifth.

According to Watauga coach Tim Pruitt, the play was chosen by the team's seniors before the game when the coach offered them the choice to have one play run during the course of their final game. When he

It's routine for high school students to complain about a long bus ride or commute to school. You can hardly blame them if such protests bring the possibility of a cushy car ride in the future. Yet few students athletes -- if any -- can compare their daily sojourn to school with that of Chris Andrews, the senior quarterback for St. Joseph's (N.J.) High School whose commute to the private school from his home in Queens crosses through two states, two New York City boroughs, a car ride, subway ticket and bus ride and a full two hours door-to-door.

"He's a great kid. I don't know how he does it every day," Rob Stern, a St. Joseph assistant coach, told NorthJersey.com.

According to a story from NorthJersey.com, Andrews wakes up each morning at 5:00 to arrive at school by St. Joseph's 8 a.m. opening bell. He doesn't return home until after 8:30 p.m., more than 15 hours after his day started ... and then has to start on chores around the house.

All of that sacrifice and lack of sleep could