Oh, to be young and gifted as a basketball player, yearning to be the next LeBron James or Kobe Bryant or Dwight Howard. But what if you'd rather be just young and gifted forever?
Yahoo! reports that there are three cases of 20-something hoopsters posing as younger players. The motivation and rationale for such mindless, selfish chicanery at the high school level are as yet unknown.
Take first the case of Neville "Steele" Davis, who decided to relive his teenage years ad infinitum as a vagabond transferring from one school to the next between 2005-09 before administrators and law enforcement officials finally caught him 13 months ago. Why relive your senior year, or all of your high school years, for that matter, for four more years? Why embarass every high school you've gone to?
Anthony Avalos pulled the same scam in Arizona, but like Davis, was busted last year.
The case that gets the headlines, however, is that of Guerdwich Montimore, 22, who graduated from Dillard High School in Florida in 2005, and enrolled at a junior college in Illinois, but never played a game there. It's safe to guess that he dropped out of junior college. Nearly 18 months ago, he resurfaced, posing as Jerry Joseph, and claimed to have emigrated from Haiti. His new coach in Odessa, Texas took him in as an orphan. An anonymous e-mail sent to the school in Odessa last month exposed the truth about Montimore.
In each case, the report has not noted whether or not the schools affected by these scammers face any sanctions for using ineligible players. One would imagine that in time they would, but the shame and embarassment felt by the schools and local law enforcement agencies for letting these scams go on is far worse.
So, again, what is the motivation? I can understand if these kids don't think they're good enough yet for the NBA and, Montimore aside, can't afford college tuitions, but still want to play. They don't want to spend all their time on the playground or in the gym playing pick-up games. However, they've made their coaches & teammates accessories to their scams as well as victims, because of their selfishness. Now, they've made it impossible to be accepted by the NBA, which, in the cases of Avalos & Montimore, has three teams in Texas and 2 in Florida that could've scouted these kids. They've made it tougher, too, for other kids who legitimately belong on high school teams to even get past the try-out stage, because coaches & administrators will likely be forced to ask for birth certificates to prove they're the right age.
Well, boys, the prison 3-on-3 leagues await.........
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