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The No. 3 Ranked NJCAA Basketball Program Was Suspended Because Its School President Bailed A Player Out Of Jail

Junior college sports are intense. Iowa is intense. So naturally, the “War on 34″ rivalry between Indian Hills Community College and Southeastern Community College in Iowa will produce scenes like the brawl you’ll watch in this video. Like I said, JUCO and Iowa are basically a recipe for disaster.

When the smoke cleared after the brawl that took place after a double-overtime victory for the Indian Hills Warriors, a total of nine players and the Indian Hills head coach were hit with suspensions. But one player, Warriors sophomore guard Ronald Ross, was arrested for allegedly punching opposing coach Terry Carroll’s son, Billy, who is not a player for Southeastern.

Indian Hills school president Jim Lindenmeyer came to Ross’ rescue, bailing him out of jail, though the move was not without its consequences. NJCAA does not allow college officials to post bail for its athletes, so 26-4 Indian Hills, the No. 3 ranked NJCAA Division I men’s basketball team in the country, is now ineligible for the postseason, in essence ending their season.

It was stupid that Ross punched someone on the court, let alone someone not even on the opposing team, even if he did it at all, which is unclear. But Lindenmeyer offered a reasonably understandable defense to bailing out his school’s athlete, essentially a kid who would have spent a night in a jail cell 80 miles away from school, despite not being charged with anything.

“I feel strongly that when we leave our campus with students in our care it is our duty to return them safely to campus. This is what I would expect of any staff member and what I would expect as a parent of a child under college supervision.”

Indian Hills CC is a small school of roughly 5,500 students, so clearly Lindenmeyer feels an extra sense of duty and a strong kinship towards his students. Yeah, getting into a brawl was dumb in the first place, but the sort of rule that just universally prohibits the kind of thing Lindenmeyer did, which as we can see is forgivable under certain situations, is dumber.

[Ottumwa Courier via Deadspin]