Once again we are faced with the sensitive and touching issue of when and if a kid is eligible to play. Many of you see this topic as tantamount with transfers and delayed enrollment issues which are being thrown at the OSAA for decisions in growing numbers much like lemmings running for the cliffs of Norway. The Cipole Chronicles gives you the latest hot topic in a scoop story before the Weekly World News grabs it.

KC Ribbit wasn't like the other kids. Born five months premature, KC came into the world no bigger than a bar of complimentary hotel hand soap and with the odds stacked in the wrong direction. As parents, Ricky and Robin were anguished and Dr. Morris Philbright did the only thing he could think of. He improvised. He sent his trusted nurse Caroline Goodbody down to the pond and she captured what the doctor ordered. A bullfrog. For the next 17 hours, Dr. Philbright did what had never been done before, let alone even contemplated. He surgically removed the internal organs from the pond king and transplanted them into little KC, who's own inner workings were still so incomplete in their own transformation that KC would not have lived to see the following day. For the next seven months, little KC lived in the neonatal wing of Mercy General Hospital and then on a warm Spring afternoon, weighing in at five pounds and seven ounces, young KC went home with the happy but financially doomed parents.

By the age of three, KC was still woefully smaller than other children. In both size and intelligence, doctors told the Ribbits that little KC was off the charts on the bottom and not the top. Secretly, doctors marveled how this childs small body had assimilated an amphibians organs and metamorpically adopted them. By the age of five, KC had learned to swim but it rattled Robin as KC would often spend a minute or more laying on the bottom of their small backyard plastic vinyl pool. Doctors prepared the Ribbits for the tough road ahead with special education classes in the cards for KC. In the first grade, KC amazed fellow classmates by zapping flies off the window with a flick of the tongue. Yet slowly, KC continued to creep up the charts on fellow classmates and by the sixth grade was sitting close to the 50 percentile. Other parents thought that Robin Ribbit was for some strange reason doing a poor job of dying KC's hair when in reality KC had dirty blond hair with a slight natural greenish tint. If there was a class that KC loved, it was physical education and recess where KC would routinely shine. Posessing an awkward bowlegged running style, the child's strides on the playground and ability to jump were astonishing to Delbert Mickens who had been the P.E. teacher at Grove Elementary School for over 30 years.

Due to budget cuts, the middle school had no organized sports programs and the Ribbit's were still approximately $2.3 million in arrears to Mercy General so club sports were out of the question. The hospital deficit would have been more but once a year, Dr. Philbright would take the Ribbits on a vacation to Orlando or another nice vacation spot with one night set aside where he'd parade the family up onto a stage at some medical convention and show other doctors a pretty stunning slide show. The Ribbits got a free trip and a $50,000 per diem which went back to Mercy General.

The high school years finally arrived and KC had finally started to excel in all aspects. Good in the classroom and very popular, especially with the opposite sex, KC, who has finally sprouted to 5'8, decides to go out for basketball the coming year. KC, in all the years of  growing up, had never been athletically challenged but the older players, who sensed one of their fellow classmates would lose a roster spot to this talented youngster on the team were irritating in their taunts about KC's hair color and funny running style. KC was faster than anyone and when it came time to test vertical jump, KC put Coach Pat Ahrump near borderline arrythmia measuring a 64 inch vertical. Coach Ahrump was indeed faced with a dilemma. In all the years, the coach never had a player with the talent and athleticism seen in KC. There was no doubt the media would be all over young Ribbit and KC would easily be a first team all-state in just the first year of playing basketball. Coach Ahrump had suffered through back to back losing seasons and last place finishes in conference due to a talent pool that had long dried up.

In the first game of the season, they opened up paying a visit to last years state champs, Rosencrucian High, who boasted two returning first team all-staters. KC Ribbit's debut game was a 43 point and 35 rebound effort in leading the team past the defending champs 56-31. Ribbit also tallied 18 blocks and 17 steals in one of the greatest quadruple doubles the state had ever seen. During the second quarter, KC accidentally broke an opposing player's nose when both jumped for a rebound and KC kneed the other team's post in the nose. Following the game, Rosencrucian's head coach Taylor Toadhall blasted Ahrump and the visiting team for making a mockery out of the 'proud tradition' of basketball. Outside the gym prior to tipoff, there were religious right wing groups with banners decrying KC as a 'freak of nature' and 'spawned from the devil." On the way through the parking lot back to the car after the win, one protester started making frog croaking sounds and yelling at Ricky and Robin to put 'their kid back in the pond.' Ricky calmly walked up to the redfaced and hostile man waving a sign and shattered his jaw with a single punch. When you're $2.3 million in the hole, there isn't much a court settlement to be gained.

That night, the proud parents consoled a distraught KC who had always dealt with cruelty but never on such a large scale. Life is tough when you go to Aloha High School and you're an amphibian.

PROLOGUE-Did your own preconceived notions formulate that KC was a boy or a girl? What sex was Coach Pat and Coach Taylor?  Was it a boys or girls basketball game at Rosencrucian High? Did you equate Rosencrucian to be a Jesuit or private school? Should KC, as a girl frog be allowed to play with the boys? If KC was a friend of your child, would you approve of KC playing on the high school basketball team? If KC was playing for another school against your team, would you be opposed? Oddly enough, it was written in the mindset of KC being a girl and playing in a girls basketball family. Yet my entire family read it and in their minds, KC was a boy.

SCREENPLAY-Not yet in shooting, "Meet the Ribbits" is the latest Sasha Baron Cohen movie where he will split time playing KC Ribbit with Cameron Diaz. Both will be made to appear to look so much like each other, one will not be able to tell them apart by the end. The middle school years will be played by Dakota Fanning and the grade school years will be none other than Macauley Caulkin in the starring role. According to Hollywood sources, Brad Pitt and Kathy Bates have agreed to play the roles of Ricky Ribbit and Robin Ribbit. Dr. Philbright will be played by Danny DeVito. Dennis Hopper stars as Delbert Mickens. Nurse Goodbody role has been offered to Cloris Leachman.