DO THE RIGHT THING

In the motion picture ‘Above the Rim‘ starring the late Tupac Shakur, Leon and Duane Martin (Brooklyn’s own who actually had a nice game back in the day at FDR and NYU), Tupac has a line, ‘HANDLE YOUR BUSINESS‘!

Last night while watching the Tavis Smiley show, he had actor Chaz Palminteri on as a guest and Palminteri said, “the saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” (That was also a line in his hit film, ‘A Bronx Tale’).

And of course the title of today’s blog entry comes from the hit movie by Spike Lee.

It’s a shame, but many athletes across the country are not prescribing to any of the above theories both on and off the playing field.

There are blogs all over the internet dedicated to tracking athletes who get into trouble with the law.

A college freshman basketball player was arrested in connection with a bank robbery this past week. Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports describes the scene in his blog.

This is sad.

It reminds me of the story about seven-foot center Reggie Harding out of Detroit, Michigan. Harding had many personal issues he could never kick. Rick Reilly formerly of SI.com wrote a bit about Harding and one of his robbery attempts;

Seven-footer Reggie Harding, a former Detroit Piston, frequented a neighborhood liquor store. One day he put on a stocking mask and robbed the place at gunpoint. “What are you doing, Reggie?” the store manager asked. Harding replied, “It ain’t me, man!”

The story retold years later makes you laugh, but it’s sad.

I spoke with a college coach this morning and he told me one of his players will be ineligible this season because he failed a summer class he needed to pass in order to be eligible. Now look, I understand how hideous summer school can be; a lot of work cramped into a short period of time, I’ve been there. But if something as important as playing college athletics is riding on the line, why would you screw it up?

We need to teach our athletes not only how to compete on the court, but we also need to teach them how to compete in the game of life, which spills over to academia!

Get the job done in the classroom at a young age, continue it through high school and onto college. I’m a coach and I could care less if my nine year-old daughter plays sports, as long as she does well in school is all that I care about.

We have started open gym and workouts this week and I had to take basketball away from three of my players for the first month of the season because they are ineligible on the count of failing summer school. We’ll monitor their progress with class attendance, handing in assignments on time and passing their course work.

If not, they will not play.

Getting into trouble, disrespecting others, being unethical, lack of integrity, are all deviant behaviors athletes should cut out of their lifestyle.

As my assistant coach tells me, ‘Does it Matter’?