The Agony of Deceit : High School Coach Admits Substituting Twins Illegally

Did the devil make him do it? Or was it the devil’s evil twin?

Whatever, the basketball coach at Pretty Prairie High admits having taken unfair advantage of having twins on his team by illegally substituting one for the other.

“I wish I could relive that night,” Brad Wade said of the game last Friday, in which Pretty Prairie defeated Berean, 68-65.

“I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t do it to be deceitful, but it was a bad choice. It was a dumb thing to do. I take responsibility for it.”

Wade said the problem began when he mistakenly listed only one of the twins, Jon and Jay Stucky, in the official scorebook before the game.

Then one of the twins--Wade won’t say which--was injured during the first half. At halftime, Wade said, he instructed the other twin to change into his brother’s jersey, thereby avoiding a technical foul for substituting a player who wasn’t listed in the scorebook.

“We had a player that was playing in the wrong number,” Wade said. “We had an injury and the other kid was not listed in the book. I made a mistake in the book. I was the one who did it. I had knowledge what I was doing.”

The Stuckys look so much alike that Berean Coach Norm Holmskog and his players were unaware of the switch.

“After the game, I knew I had done the wrong thing,” Wade said. “My conscience bothered me. After talking with our principal, I voluntarily turned myself in to the state.”

Wade and one of the twins sat out a one-game suspension.