Australian Center Lands in Massachusetts

Martin Iti, a 6-foot-11 Australian basketball player who spent the last three years crisscrossing the United States in search of a high school that suited him and his guardian, has enrolled at the Winchendon School in Winchendon, Mass., according to Richard Plank, the school’s director of admissions.

Iti will be classified as a junior. It will be his sixth school in four states since arriving in the United States in May 1998. Classes begin Sept. 10.

Iti enrolled at Villa Park High as a junior last fall and completed first-semester exams before returning to Australia in January.

At the time of his departure, Iti was serving a yearlong athletic suspension for misleading school officials about his academic status and was barred from playing high school basketball in California for his senior season because his eight semesters of eligibility had expired.

Iti last played high school basketball at Anaheim Servite, where he averaged 12 points and 7.6 rebounds during the 1999-2000 school year.

Winchendon, located about 65 miles northwest of Boston, has an enrollment of about 185. The school’s purpose, according to Plank, is to “take students who have average to above average ability but who have not reached their full academic potential.”

He will join a basketball program with a storied tradition and 10-13 Division I college prospects on this season’s roster, according to Winchendon boys’ basketball Coach Mike Byrnes.

The Green Wave went 23-8 last season, advancing to the semifinals of the New England Prep School Athletic Conference tournament.