Academic Integrity

Slasher is going to struggle academically. He graduated from high school with a 1.5 GPA. That comes as no surprise since all of the local stars I’ve coached enroll here with checkered transcripts. What continues to astonish me is how they earned passing grades to even get to this point.  

The saddest moment of my coaching tenure occurred off the court when I asked my star power forward (Loco) to read a paragraph to me. It took him five minutes to read ten sentences. He had trouble pronouncing every word with multiple syllables, and had no clue what any of them meant.

These weren’t what I would’ve called SAT words either. I had to compose myself. I didn’t want to cry in his presence and have him feel worse about not being able to read well. Despite my best efforts to push Loco academically, he failed 7 out of 8 remedial classes. The most distressing aspect of it all was that he had an IEP and still couldn’t pass those classes despite receiving extra accommodations…

Dealing with Loco’s situation has helped me work better with players who are academically at-risk. Slasher stands to be a beneficiary of the lessons I’ve learned from past years. For instance, I used to brush it off when a guy would send me borderline incoherent text messages. Today, I use that as an indicator of academic ability. I ask guys to text me in plain English. If they’re unable to do so, I conclude that they either can’t write well or they’re too stubborn to comply. Either case isn’t good.

Slasher and I were texting recently when I picked up on some obvious red flags. Prior to this text exchange he and I had a conversation at his high school that offered a major clue. I asked what books he was reading in English class, and he told me they were reading books by “some guy that wrote a lot of confusing plays back in the day.” It didn’t take long for me to figure out that he was talking about Shakespeare.

Me: You need to take the placement test before you could work out with the team.

Slasher: Okay, but don’t I need to study for that?

Me: There’s a study guide, but for the most part, you either know the stuff or you don’t. The math part has some older stuff, but the English section should be straightforward.

Slasher: What do you mean?

Me: The boy rode the red bike. What’s the verb?

Slasher: Rode the bike?

Me: No. The verb is rode. What’s the adjective?

Slasher: The bike? I don’t know. Smh

Me: The adjective is red. How many paragraphs make up a good essay?

Slasher: Umm. 3?

Me: At least 4, but 5 is usually better.

Slasher: I guess I do need to study.