Themes Couldn’t End Fast Enough

You just can’t make this stuff up ...

Some parents at Northview High in Bratt, Fla., were angry over part of the school’s week-long celebration leading up to its homecoming football game. It seems Principal Gayle Weaver scheduled “Redneck Day” along with “Favorite Celebrity Day” and others where students are allowed to dress according to the theme.

No word whether anyone wore a sheet.

One African American parent said her 10th-grade daughter got into a fight over racial slurs during the event and was suspended.

Weaver said she wouldn’t have scheduled it if she had known anyone would be offended. She said she viewed “redneck” as more of an “agricultural term.”

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Clueless revisited: A youth football coach in McMurray, Pa., has been reprimanded for giving the 10- and 11-year-old players on his team “pep pills” -- actually sugar pills he told them would improve their performance.

Al Scandolari calls the sugar-pill flap an innocent mistake, but the local parks and recreation board thought the pills might give the kids the wrong message.

You think?

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Trivia time: Which of the following sports -- tug of war, golf, darts or deer shooting -- has never been part of the Olympics?

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Sweet success: Kansas City baseball fans have until Friday to exchange ticket stubs for games in which the Royals had 12 or more hits for a dozen free Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The surprising Royals, who lost a franchise-record 100 games in 2002, reached the 12-hit mark 27 times en route to an 83-79 record, meaning Krispy Kreme could end up giving away 6.8 million doughnuts.

The promotion’s success has played a role in the opening of at least two new bakeries in the area, but the company isn’t committing to a repeat deal in 2004.

Maybe they’ll raise the ante to a baker’s dozen hits.

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Cavalier attitude: His propensity to toss up bricks in the exhibition season may have some teams leaving him open on the perimeter, but that has done nothing to take any steam out of the LeBron James runaway marketing train.

Here’s a partial list of the souvenirs available at Cleveland’s Gund Arena gift shop (and we’re not listing the usual T-shirt, poster, hat, pennant or jersey): wall clock ($30); necklace ($10); box set of coins ($130); flag ($28); actual jersey ($550), and trash can ($20).

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Season wrap: A couple of final notes as we say goodbye to the 2003 baseball season, thanks to Mike Lopresti of Gannett News Service:

* The Diamondbacks used 140 lineups in the first 155 games.

* The Mets scored two runs in extra innings.

* The Dodgers were 75-0 when leading after eight innings.

* American League East teams finished in the same order for the sixth consecutive year.

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Trivia answer: Darts.

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And finally: We hope he was kidding ...

Former major league pitcher Rob Dibble, describing his somewhat solitary home life to the “Dan Patrick Show” radio audience: “Me and my dog, sitting around, watching porn.”