High school coach screams and jumps to defend pass in bizarre, but legal play

Chris Cwik
·Staff writer
A high school coach got creative during an inbounds pass. (Image via @Justin_Fox5 on Twitter)
A high school coach got creative during an inbounds pass. (Image via @Justin_Fox5 on Twitter)

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is known for his creativity on the sideline, but we can’t imagine he’s going to adopt this technique any time soon. In an attempt to distract the opponent, one high school coach did his best to play defense during an inbound play.

When a player from Greater Atlanta Christian tried to toss an inbounds pass, Johnson High School basketball coach Utaff Gordon sprung to action. The result was this bizarre-looking play:

Yeah, that’s Gordon acting like an extra player on defense. He’s jumping and screaming on the sideline as the opposing player tried to get the ball inbounds.

That player, Hunter McIntosh, can’t believe it. You can see him point to Gordon as if to say, “Is this guy for real?” He then lobs the ball over Gordon’s arms to one of his teammates. Gordon’s strategy ultimately ended in failure.

You’ll notice that it was allowed to happen, though. No foul was called on the play. That didn’t come as a surprise to Gordon, who told Fox 5 what he did was perfectly legal.

“Actually, you can!” said Gordon. “As long as you don’t interfere with the ball, and as long as you don’t talk to the opposing player. So what I do, is I talk loud enough to my players where it gets on the nerves of the opposing player. In other words, I try to circumvent the rules.”

A foul can actually be called if the refs rule that the coach is showing poor sportsmanship, but that wasn’t the case here.

Gordon freely admits that the move is an attempt to circumvent the rules. And given that it could be penalized based on the ref’s discretion, we probably won’t see anything like this above the high school level.

Also, Gordon’s team lost … so his attempt failed in two ways.

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Chris Cwik is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik