The art of sign stealing is well known in baseball, but football?
Of course there is Spygate involving the New England Patriots, but they used cameras to watch what their opponents were calling on offense. That was blatant cheating, and they were punished.
But a few years back, Columbus North baseball coach Phil Kluesner used his baseball knowledge on the football field by watching the opposing coach's hand signals.
Unfortunately for Franklin Central coach Lance Scheib, his signals weren't very complex and Kluesner needed only one quarter to know when the ball was going to the Flashes' best player.
"It took me a little while, and I started to see some repetition," Kluesner said. "In baseball they can be very simple but very difficult to pick up depending on the speed and the tempo. With football, it's very methodical. This is what I want. When he did that (lifting his arm), that went to (Donald) Washington. He did it every time. ...
"Then we started to pick up some things and load our defense to one side. They were a good team. We were just looking for a way to take the game. I'm pretty sure we beat them too. It was fun."
Spygate was clearly an issue of cheating, using technology to gain an advantage. But what about sign stealing in football or baseball? Does it go against the code of coaches?
Kluesner, East coach Rick Dwenger and Jennings County coach Paul Madinger all said they think it's part of baseball. Most coaches won't do it themselves as they are too involved in other aspects of the game, but sometimes bench players play the role.
"I want my guys to be learning as much about baseball as they can," Dwenger said. "If they can pick up a sign from a coach and they're pretty positive about it, I'll listen to them."
The simple theory from these coaches seems to be if it's obvious enough that we can pick it up, then you deserve to have it stolen.
"I don't think it's against the code," Kluesner said. "I think you always look for an advantage. It's not beyond the ethics of the game."
Some coaches will change up their signs as the season progresses and they face teams a second or third time. But some coaches feel that even knowing what's coming may not help.
"When I call pitches, I never change, just for the simple fact that I have the theory of 'I don't care if you know what's coming. They still have to hit it,'" Madinger said. "If my pitcher puts the ball in the right spot on the right pitch, that batter still has to hit it."
Tennis is one of the few high school sports in which players rule themselves without the help of officials.
Players call their opponent's shots in or out all on the fly during a match. The opportunity for impropriety is there, but North coach Kendal Hammel said the majority of players are honest.
"We don't run into that a lot in our matches," Hammel said. "Yeah there are people that have issues with their perfect scores every time. I think in general as far as cheating or bad calls, it's not a case we run into."
Hammel preaches to his teams to be fair, not only to your opponents but to yourself, but he said if it's close he tells them to call it in. It's only one point, and he's never seen a match decided by one bad call.
In a recent match, North's No. 1 singles player, Caroline Hedrick, was accused by her opponent of cheating. For her, that was worse than being on the wrong end of a bad call.
"Even if you're not cheating, it's kind of bad to be accused of cheating even if it's clearly out," Hedrick said. "It gets on your nerves and gets your focus out of balance when you see somebody make a really bad call. ...
"It just happens sometimes whether it's purposeful or not. It's just kind of annoying. There is nothing you can do about it. You have to play through it."
There are some things players can do when they feel bad calls are going against them. They can question their opponents' calls. If things don't improve, they can ask coaches to keep an eye on the match. Players still make the calls, but coaches are there to overrule an obvious bad call.
Hammel said he sees closer line calls in boys' matches as they play at a faster pace and have less time to make a call. Plus boys can be a little more competitive in that situation.
Seymour coach Brad Emerson sees the lines squeezed a little more when two competitive players are going at it regardless of sex. But there are some teams and players that tend to make bad calls. Emerson warns his teams against retaliation.
"I do warn them that this team under tight situations may resort to calling some bad lines," Emerson said. "So you want to make sure you try not to hit the lines with your shot. Avoid that situation and keep your shots a little more in the safety area where they can't call it out."
Golf is another sport where players guide themselves. There are rules officials at tournaments, but it's up to the players to call infractions on themselves. Sometimes those infractions are pretty obscure.
"Most of the time they will call it on themselves," North golfer Tyler Duncan said. "If you're going to do it intentionally, then you're not going to call it on yourself because you're just trying to cheat. But usually if you break the rules and you weren't meaning to, then you're going to call it on yourself."
Duncan said he hasn't witnessed much cheating on the course, such as players giving themselves better lies when they think no one else is looking. While he does pay attention to what the other golfers in his group are doing, he has to trust that the other guys are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
"The only cheating that I have witnessed is signing the wrong score card at the end of the round," Duncan said. "Sometimes it may not be (a mistake). It just depends on the player really. Some people might try to shave a few strokes off their score, but most of the time it isn't intentional."
A few years ago, the IHSAA relaxed its rules concerning contact between coaches and athletes in the offseason. There is open participation in the summer, meaning the athletes can receive as much coaching as the coaches want to give out.
But there are some rules to open participation. Open facilities have to be open to all athletes from that school and only that school. That means kids from East and North cannot meet in the Orange Pit for a summer pickup game.
"Sometimes they get in that mindset, if they can coach them all year, why can't they do that in the school year?" said Bob Gaddis, East athletic director and football coach.
There are restrictions during the school year. Coaches and players can meet, but coaches can work with only two athletes at a time. For instance, an assistant can work with one athlete and the head coach with another for a total of two. The head and assistant coach can't each work with two.
Warren Central's football program got caught last year for breaking that rule. Basically they were holding open football practices during the school year where coaches were working with dozens of athletes at a time.
Had a news helicopter not caught them by chance, they probably would have gotten away with it.
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