Center Grove student says he meant no harm

When he strode into the Vandermeer Gymnasium for Friday night’s boys basketball game, Center Grove senior Fred Lyons felt fully prepared for everything that was about to unfold.

He was planning to help get the crowd and the team fired up for the Trojans, then the No. 4 team in the state, to beat No. 3 Cathedral. He had some stunts or displays planned, and was ready to be what the crowd and team needed to stay energized.

But one of the stunts backfired, causing his intentions — and the way Center Grove students in general are viewed — to be tarnished.

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Video clips showing Lyons flopping on the ground during a free throw attempt by Fighting Irish player James Franklin Jr. were widely viewed as an attempt to mock Franklin, who had brain surgery in 2017 in an effort to combat the epileptic seizures that had plagued him since birth.

The backlash against Lyons has been overwhelming, to the point where he hasn’t yet felt comfortable enough to return to school. But he insists that he in no way meant to make fun of Franklin’s condition, and says that it was purely a horrible coincidence.

In the heat of the moment

The free throw at the center of the controversy, which occurred with 3:31 remaining in the second quarter, was not the only shot that saw Lyons making a wild attempt to distract a Cathedral shooter.

The first stunt of note came with 5:36 to go in the period, when Fighting Irish star Armaan Franklin — an Indiana University recruit and no relation to James Franklin Jr. — came to the foul line. The Trojans’ cheer block was positioned under the opposing team’s basket during the first half.

Those displays, Lyons said, were the only ones he was actually prepared for in advance. He and his friends had done some research on Armaan Franklin before the game and mapped out a plan.

For each of those two free throws, Lyons dropped to the ground in a full split and tore off his shirt, revealing a photo of Armaan Franklin’s mother that was stuck to his bare chest.

“I thought, ‘What’s the worst thing you could ever see while taking a free throw?’” Lyons explained. “A picture of your mother on someone’s stomach who had just ripped their shirt off.”

Armaan Franklin missed both of his free throws.

Having successfully distracted one shooter, Lyons and his friends in the front row of the Trojan cheer block tried to come up with stunts for the next time a Cathedral player went to the foul line.

As it happened, that was James Franklin Jr., who was fouled with 3:31 left in the half. During his first shot, Lyons can be seen mimicking a shot attempt in a goofy fashion.

The second shot is where the night became complicated.

“My friend A.J. Wiese had decided — if you look at all the videos, he’s the redhead that’s behind us — he said, ‘Here, I’ll reel you in like a fish,’” Lyons said. “And that was, ‘OK, we don’t want to do that one,’ because I really didn’t want to flop around. And then my friend said, ‘Do the worm,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know how to do the worm.’

“So I tried to be beautiful — you see me trying to look all sexy in the video — and it didn’t work. Okay, let’s go more outlandish — OK, so let’s flop around like a fish. … (Wiese) was going to be trying to reel me in, but I kind of did it too late for him to really be fully in there.”

James Franklin Jr. made both of his free throws.

‘A perfect storm’

After halftime, Lyons went to the balcony to watch the remainder of the game. With Cathedral shooting at the other end of the gym in the second half, his distraction services were no longer needed.

During that time, he said, he was approached by several people — including Center Grove High School principal Jeff Henderson — congratulating him on his successful efforts to distract the Cathedral players.

Henderson said he had seen Lyons do the splits and tear his shirt.

“I approached him and told him I appreciated his enthusiasm and was impressed by his flexibility,” Henderson said on Tuesday. “At that time, I was not aware of the perceptions of the Cathedral student-athlete.”

Lyons said he had no idea anything out of the ordinary had happened until after the game, when he was waiting in the gym for a friend and was approached by a Cathedral supporter. That fan explained James Franklin Jr.’s history and then brought Lyons over to the player’s father, James Franklin Sr.

Lyons said he offered an apology; he said Franklin Sr. “was really quiet.” The Franklin family has not responded to requests for comment.

By Saturday morning, two videos that had been posted online of Lyons flopping around on the ground had each been viewed more than 100,000 times, with numerous people commenting on social media and labeling Lyons as a bully for mocking someone with epilepsy.

Lyons said that he has tried to avoid reading most of them — he has stayed away from Facebook and Twitter and seen only what showed up on his Instagram. Most of the people targeting him, he said, have mocked him for his weight, which he says he’s used to. But a couple made vaguely threatening statements.

“Some of the more aggressive ones have been more like, ‘Don’t come to the next Pike game,’ ‘Watch out at school,’ stuff like that,” Lyons said. “Just general hate.”

Lyons and his father, Ed, met with Center Grove officials on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, officials from both schools had arranged for a one-on-one meeting between Lyons and Franklin Jr. to take place at Cathedral High School.

Just before leaving for that meeting, Lyons was informed that Franklin Jr. would not be attending. Lyons went to Cathedral anyway to explain himself to school officials there, and he says he would still like an opportunity to speak with Franklin Jr. face to face.

Lyons reiterated multiple times that he in no way intended to mock Franklin’s medical history; the stunt was a spur-of-the-moment choice and would have been the same regardless of who had come to the foul line next.

“It stinks that it was a perfect storm, that it was him being up there, because it would have happened to anybody,” he said. “No matter who it was, I would have done the same thing. I hate that it’s come to this.”

Context matters

Additional video that has surfaced online since the original weekend outcry lends some support to Lyons’ account of what happened.

A timeout was called in between the two Franklin Jr. free throws, and footage from that break shows Lyons turning around to talk to Wiese, who makes a motion with his arm that could resemble the reeling in of a fish.

Lyons said that he has not been subjected to any discipline by Center Grove officials, and that he has no reason to believe that he will be.

“I believe I’ve done nothing wrong here,” he said. “I had no bad intentions.”

He says he has not been barred from attending Center Grove sporting events in the future — but while he’d like to keep going to cheer for his friends, he’s wary of coming to another game in the near future.

His greater long-term concerns are centered around the possibility that his chances at getting into a college or getting a job will be harmed by the controversy. No matter how many times he insists that he meant no harm, there will always be some people that draw their own conclusions.

As for what lessons he’s learned, Lyons said that in a situation where he’s been accused of doing too much research on an opponent, ironically, his biggest mistake was not doing enough.

“If I would have researched about (Franklin Jr.), I wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “But since I didn’t research about him, I did it. If I would have done research on everybody on the team, I would have known to stay away from that. But I only researched Armaan, and that’s all I knew about.”