Could two fighting incidents in Iowa boys basketball games end postgame handshakes?

The first week of Iowa high school boys basketball went off mostly without a hitch. But two incidents, both of which occurred during postgame handshakes, marred celebrations of a return to normalcy.

Following a Tuesday game between Nevada and Carlisle, the Nevada player who was leading the handshake line was punched twice by a Carlisle opponent. The Carlisle player has since been charged with willful injury, causing serious injury, a felony.

In a separate incident Monday evening, a matchup between East Union and Diagonal ended in pushing and shoving. At least one member from Diagonal’s team was pushed to the ground. That altercation also began during postgame handshakes.

"It’s especially unfortunate because it starts the season this way," said Chris Cuellar, communications director for the Iowa High School Athletic Association. "It leads Iowa high school basketball to be seen in this way and that’s the discussion on social media. We just got out of an entire season that was essentially pre-vaccine and didn’t have any issues like this. It really is just unfortunate."

Videos of the incidents went viral on social media. The video of the Nevada-Carlisle incident had been viewed 4.9 million times on Twitter as of Thursday evening.

Cuellar said he believes this week's behavior was an anomaly, something he hasn’t seen since joining the IHSAA in 2017.

Cuellar said that even though the occurrences were rare, they are troubling and have sparked questions about ending postgame handshake lines, which the association started discussing during the pandemic.

During the 2020-21 season, teams moved away from postgame handshakes for health and safety purposes. Instead, they opted for waves or other signs of sportsmanship from their sidelines.

Cuellar said the IHSAA isn’t ready to eliminate postgame handshakes in the immediate aftermath of this week’s events, but they are tuned in to those conversations.

"In any given contest, our role is to provide the rules and oversight," Cuellar said about the IHSAA’s ability to regulate postgame interactions. "What we can do is clearly communicate expectations, try to provide safe outlets for whatever that sportsmanship might look like.

"I don’t know that there’s a perfect way to do it, but that’s certainly (been part of) discussions that we’re having as an office and that we’re going to continue to have with our schools. If this is something that they all come to us and say, 'Scrap it,' well then we’ll see a change because that’s how we work."

Others outside of the IHSAA have seen comments on social media calling for an end to postgame handshakes. Tom Kinseth, the Central Iowa Metropolitan League commissioner, agrees that this week's events were unfortunate but thinks a show of sportsmanship should remain after games.

"It’s just rare, and having two of them in one week," Kinseth said. "The two incidents are isolated, and those local school districts have to step in and try to figure out what to do better and what they can do to promote sportsmanship better."

The schools involved in the two incidents are not members of the CIML, but Kinseth saw both of the videos and the discussions about getting rid of postgame handshakes on social media. He says that two isolated issues shouldn’t be the cause for eliminating a show of sportsmanship from games, and that it’s on coaches and players to win and lose respectfully.

"It’s just a learning situation for those four communities and what (they) can do to make it better," Kinseth continued. "Just going away with forgetting the handshake, I don’t think is a good idea. … The more we can support and promote sportsmanship during all our high school activities, I think is a positive."

When incidents like these occur, there is no formal reporting process within the IHSAA, Cuellar said, but the association is involved in the resolution of such issues. The IHSAA staff works with the schools to determine what the correct course of action is, whether that be releasing a statement, disciplinary action or something more. It is typically the school’s responsibility to determine what measures are necessary.

Cuellar said association officials look at things like officials’ ejection reports and commentary, in addition to maintaining constant communication with school representatives — athletic directors, principals and coaches — to help keep tabs on sportsmanship and behavior.

In the case of the Nevada-Carlisle game, the IHSAA was already in contact with both schools before the video was shared online.

"We had received information from them (Nevada and Carlisle) and they were wholly cooperative, and they worked together to try and sort out the situation," Cuellar said. "That’s the way these things should go about."

Alyssa Hertel is a college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: After Iowa high school boys basketball fights, handshakes questioned