We've Found The Dirtiest HS Basketball Players In America, And They're Two Chunky White Guys

This has apparently been making the rounds (to the point where the local news did a story on the "viral video"), but it's new to us, and it's fantastic. It shows a high school game from Washington State, and a series of (uncalled) flagrant fouls at the hands of two Connell High School players who are straight wrecking shit.

Numbers 34 and 42 are Cole Vanderbilt and Kennan VanHollebeke, and are built like lineman. This makes sense, because at 6'3", 280, and 6'4", 235, both are linemen on the Eagles' football team.

The devastating duo have no shortage of defenders, starting with their AD:

"My feeling is I bet you could go to 90% of any sporting event that has contact like basketball, football, whatever. You could probably go through any person's game film and pull these same or similar incidents out. This just happened to be a person did that and posted it online" said Steve Frucci, athletic director of the North Franklin School District.

But we're more taken with the defenses laid out by Vanderbilt's grandmother and coach, both of whom probably have him more embarrassed than this video.

"He's a nice, young student in high school," Karen Vanderbilt said of her grandson, who couldn't be reached for comment.

Vanderbilt has taken the negative attention to heart, but his team has rallied to support him, said Connell coach Oscar Garza.

"He's a tough kid, but those that know him know he's a teddy bear," Garza said. "My 7-year-old son loves him and lights up when he's around. But on (YouTube) he's the world's meanest, ugliest kid. It's not fair, but I just want him to know his teammates and coaches are behind him."

That's...actually kind of sad. These kids are bigger than everyone else out there, and they probably got made fun of growing up for it. (VanHollebeke "grew up on a dryland wheet[sic] farm and cattle ranch.") Their job is probably to clog the lane and make the other team think twice about driving to the basket. And you know what? They're doing an awesome job of it. You think some stringbean sophomore is going to dare set a pick on Cole or Kennan? Hell no. So screw the negativity. We're firmly with Connell on this. If you can't go hard, go home. And Cole and Kennan go HAM.