Unjustified Penalty

(Continuation of Previous Story, "Chronic Issue")

Philly got caught smoking weed on campus. Of all places, Philly and his homies decided to light up right behind the Student Life Center which is located at the center of campus. There was no fence or anything else blocking the trio from being seen, but they expected to puff and pass undetected. Although they weren't seen, the fresh smell of bud alerted the building administrator that some students were getting high nearby.

A couple of Police officers showed up and caught Philly with the blunt in his hand. According to the police report, he resisted initially but upon realizing the severity of the situation, Philly cooperated and took a walk to the Dean's office. At that point he was asked to return at a later date for a more formal meeting to address the matter.

At the follow-up meeting, Philly was given a police report to review. After reading through it with the Dean, he opted to plea "no contest" since a trial in front of the judicial board meant he could potentially be expelled from the college. He accepted a lesser punishment which involved being barred from playing basketball for at least half of the next season, and having the infraction attached to his student record. He signed the form and went on his merry way.

All the while, I waited patiently for Philly to tell me about the incident. I saw him in the Athletic Center two weeks after the fact and chopped it up with him for a bit, pretending to know nothing about the episode. He didn't say a word about the violation, or ensuing penalty. During that encounter his eyes were blood shot and he smelled like he had just smoked, but I didn't care to investigate since I had already decided to cut him loose for the entire upcoming season.

After a full month, I informed Philly that I knew about what happened and decided to suspend him for the upcoming season. He feigned ignorance about signing the plea that incriminated him. I even had the Dean send him another copy as a reminder of what he confessed. He still played stupid. The exchange we had about the matter infuriated me so much that I decided to block his phone calls and text messages.

Philly: Why am I being suspended for the season?
Me: What do you mean? I gave you a full month to tell me about what happened and you didn't. Now you have to face the consequence.
Philly: I don't understand. I wasn't even smokin! These cops are lyin!!
Me: They caught you with a blunt in your hand. I saw the police report.
Philly: Okay but they said I was smoking. I wasn't smokin no blunt, coach. I ain't dumb enough to smoke on campus.
Me: Oh. You were just holding the blunt with no intention of smoking it?
Philly: I'm just sayin that I wasn't smokin and I don't see why you're suspending me for the season. That's wack!
Me: Wack?!?! You never came to me about this whole incident and now you want to say this is wack?! Are you kidding me?!?!
Philly: As my coach you supposed to have my back. That's all I'm sayin. I ain't ever give you no trouble before and this is how you play me?


TO BE CONTINUED...

Chronic Issue

"Philly" was escorted by Campus Police into the Administration Building. I happened to be walking out of the building while he was being brought into it. Something serious was going on but I didn't care to ask about it at the moment. At that point in the school year, I didn't feel like dealing with nonsense. If anything, I knew that an officer or the Dean would be in touch with me at some point.

The second semester of my sixth year was filled with drama. It all started with my leading scorer tearing his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) right before the first semester ended. He was a speedy guard we relied on for easy transition baskets since the team lacked a big man who could score inside. I knew that it would be a challenge to replace his production, but I assumed we could weather the storm since we were adding another scorer (Philly) to the team in between semesters. I was wrong.

It didn't help matters that we had a very difficult schedule to begin the next semester. Our first six games were against the top three teams in our league and three Division 2 schools. We lost every single game. The mental toughness of my team quickly came to light as the "captain", with whom I had a very tenuous relationship, started to unravel. He decided to lead his own version of a mutiny against me by doing a number of things to get under my skin--like showing up high for games with Philly and another teammate (Spider).

My back was against the wall. I wanted to kick them off the team, but having already lost a major contributor I didn't think we would be able to compete with anybody in the league without those guys. I was also aware that booting them from the team meant they would all likely drop out of school. Their response to losing a lot was to get kicked off the team--essentially, relieving them of their misery. I didn't take the bait. Instead, I suspended the "captain" from a game to send a message to Philly and Spider.

There were no more weed infractions that season. Even though we had a losing record that semester, we still ended the season with a respectable 15-12 record and a berth in the regional tournament. Still, I couldn't wait for the season to end. When the final horn sounded during our semi-final round loss in the regional tournament I was relieved. The misery was over until I got called into the Associate Dean of Students' office a month later.

Dean: Is Philly one of your guys?
Me: Yes, he is.
Dean: You should know that he got in trouble for having drugs on campus.
Me: Drugs?
Dean: Yes. Marijuana. He was caught lighting up in his car earlier in the week and again a few days later by the Student Life Center.
Me: Was he with anybody?
Dean: Yes. He was with your team captain.
Me: I figured. That's real nice.
Dean: What was funny in this is that he didn't think he did anything wrong.
Me: How so?
Dean: He said he was just holding the marijuana-filled blunt. He wasn't smoking it.

Wicki Icky

I work with many young men who are ill prepared for college level work. It's very common for me to get guys who don't know where to place a period in a sentence, for example. Their reading levels are equally alarming. I often wonder how so many of them could have graduated from high school.

Thankfully this isn't true of every guy I have coached here. The range of academic aptitude and ability has been broad. The only common denominator between the ones who struggle most has been  (un)diagnosed learning issues--most notably Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a range of cognitive issues. The ADHD guys are pretty easy to identify (whether it's diagnosed or not), but I have yet to really grasp the other learning issues.

Along the lines of these learning difficulties, it took several years for me to figure out how to teach guys offensive "sets" (i.e. plays). I never understood how I'd go over a particular play repeatedly only to see a player look totally lost weeks later. In some cases it was as if I had never covered the concepts at all. Eventually I learned not to teach more than two plays, and to use film as much as possible to reinforce certain aspects of the offense.

Some people chalk it up to stupidity. I just think some of these guys have never learned how to learn. They treat every new thing like a rubix cube because they have no sense of where to start, or how to grasp a concept. One guy, in particular, "Wiki" had a really hard time with plays and a rather choppy history here academically. I always suspected there was a learning challenge but never quite knew how to bring that up in conversation without offending him. Six years after enrolling here Wicki still didn't have enough credits to graduate. This is supposed to be a two-year school.

Wicki was a really bad student before joining the basketball team. In the three years prior to playing, he had taken ten classes and failed or received an "X" in five of them. After he started playing, however, Wicki only failed or withdrew from two out of fourteen classes. While his grades improved drastically, he was still on shaky ground academically. Five full-time semesters after enrolling, he still had yet to satisfy the English requirement to graduate. As a matter of fact during one of our last academic check-ins his academic deficiencies were brought to light again.

Wicki: I got a problem, Coach. You got a few minutes to talk?
Me: What's up?
Wicki: Man, my ex got me in trouble. I don't even know what's going to happen.
Me: How'd she get you in trouble?
Wicki: So, recently I had a six page paper for one of my classes and I asked her to help me with it.
Me: Did she not help you?
Wicki: She did, but I didn't realize she copied and pasted the whole paper from Wickipedia. I sent it to my Professor without proofreading it.