IndyStar readers voted with their clicks, making these the Top 10 sports stories of 2016 by page views on IndyStar.com.

1. Andrew Smith dies

Former Butler University basketball player Andrew Smith died Jan. 13 after a public battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia. He was 25. He played in two NCAA Final Fours during his time at Butler. Smith and his wife, Samantha, shared their struggle with the public to increase support for bone marrow registry. In his honor this season, Butler players are wearing a patch on their uniforms featuring his initials and jersey number, 44.

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2. Peyton Manning retires

After winning a second Super Bowl, and spending 14 seasons with the Colts and four with the Broncos, Peyton Manning retired on March 7. “There’s something about 18 years, 18 is a good number, and today I retire from professional football,” an emotional Manning announced.

3. Griffith team bus flips

“It’s amazing nobody was killed. Why was nobody killed?” coach Gary Hayes asked after a school bus carrying his Griffith High School boys basketball team to a semistate game against Marion in Lafayette on March 19 was sideswiped on I-65. The bus spun off the highway and flipped with 21 students and seven adults aboard. The force was so great that shoes flew off players’ feet. No one suffered life-threatening injury.

4. Joel Cornette dies

Just months after Andrew Smith passed away, the Butler basketball program lost another member of its family. Joel Cornette, who started on the Bulldogs basketball teams from 1999-2003 that made three NCAA tournaments, died Aug. 16 in Chicago of coronary atherosclerosis. He was 35.

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5. Dirt track for Tony Stewart

As a going away gift for Tony Stewart, who retired from NASCAR this year, Indianapolis Motor Speedway built a dirt track inside Turn 3. The  3/16th-mile oval was installed for Stewart’s visit to the track in July.  IMS can expand the track so it’s large enough to host sprint cars, too.

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6. Bryan Clauson dies

Noblesville driver Bryan Clauson died Aug. 7 from injuries suffered a day earlier in a USAC midget crash in Belleville, Kan. 

Clauson ran in three Indianapolis 500 races,  including the 100th running in May, finishing 23rd. He was best known for his talent in the dirt racing world. He won two USAC national sprint car championships and two USAC national midget car championships and had more than 170 feature wins in his career.

7. Chad Red column by Gregg Doyel

“Chad Red has never lost,” Doyel wrote. Not for the New Palestine High wresting team. He entered the final weekend of his high school career with a 179-0 record (132 pins) and three state titles. Perfection.” (Red would go on to win his fourth state title, and his 183rd straight win without a loss.)

8: IU football coach resigns

On Dec. 1, citing “philosophical differences,” Indiana University athletic director Fred Glass announced he was accepting football coach Kevin Wilson’s resignation. Documents obtained later by IndyStar revealed that a 2015 investigation into how injured players were treated contributed to Wilson’s leaving IU.

9. Ben Davis-Pike girls basketball brawl

An on-court fight broke out between Ben Davis and Pike girls basketball teams on Jan. 16. The game was deemed a double forfeit, and the IHSAA canceled the rest of the girls’ games for both schools. IHSAA commissioner Bobby Cox called the incident, “unacceptable, egregious and violent.”

10. Tyler Varga’s concussion

Tyler Varga was a surprise to make the cut as a Colt last August. Then a jarring hit popped his helmet loose and had him wobbling to the wrong sideline in September 2015. That’s all it took for a 22-year-old who had never suffered a diagnosed concussion to watch his rookie NFL season go up in smoke. In the end, so did his NFL career. In July, Varga retired from pro football, citing his long-term health as the deciding factor.