This is the story of four boys who journeyed from Syracuse, NY to Memphis, TN in search of basketball glory, but returned with a life lesson much more valuable than anything they could have learned on the court.
The full names of all individuals in this story have purposely been omitted to protect them from further embarrassment due to the poor judgment of a bad coach, who thought he would never get caught.
MB, DD, IW, and BW are 7th grade students who have played basketball together for four years. Their school teams and their AAU teams have been consistent performers over the years, and they have been fortunate in that their teams win far more tournaments than they lose.
Earlier this year, three of the boys were "recruited" by another Syracuse-based AAU team (Coker's Phenoms) to play in some tournaments with them. The tournaments didn't conflict with their regular team schedule, and the boys welcomed the chance to get some more playing time under their belts.
One of the tournaments they entered was an AAU regional qualifying event in Pittsburg, PA. The boys played hard, and Coker’s Phenoms won the entire tournament in the 13 year old and under category. This win qualified them to play in the AAU National Championship Tournament held in Memphis, TN the week of June 28th 2010.
The boys organized fundraisers and events, spoke with sponsors, and with the help of the community and their parents, they were able to raise enough money to travel to Memphis for the week. Coker’s Phenoms also invited a fourth player from our core team to make the trip with us.
The night before we left, my son came home from their last practice and said "coach is bringing two additional players with us, CT and SL. I told our son I doubted that would be the case, because CT and SL were both in 8th grade, CT was already 14, and SL would be 14 in a couple of weeks. For those of you unfamiliar with AAU rules, each team is allowed three "grade exceptions" which lets an older 7th grader play with his classmates. For example, if a child was held back a grade, or had an early birthday, a 14 year old is allowed to play, but only if he is in 7th grade. CT and SL were clearly ineligible, as they were too old and in the wrong grade.
That evening I e-mailed the coach (AC) all of the official AAU rules, to confirm that he understood those players would not be allowed to compete.
The next day, I spoke with the coach face-to-face before we left town for Memphis. The coach told me "I know those boys are not supposed to play. They are only coming down with us to have a vacation with their friends and to help us practice". I thought the matter was settled and we left for Memphis.
I flew down to Memphis with my family and two additional players. The rest of the team, including the two ineligible players, drove down with the coach.
The full names of all individuals in this story have purposely been omitted to protect them from further embarrassment due to the poor judgment of a bad coach, who thought he would never get caught.
MB, DD, IW, and BW are 7th grade students who have played basketball together for four years. Their school teams and their AAU teams have been consistent performers over the years, and they have been fortunate in that their teams win far more tournaments than they lose.
Earlier this year, three of the boys were "recruited" by another Syracuse-based AAU team (Coker's Phenoms) to play in some tournaments with them. The tournaments didn't conflict with their regular team schedule, and the boys welcomed the chance to get some more playing time under their belts.
One of the tournaments they entered was an AAU regional qualifying event in Pittsburg, PA. The boys played hard, and Coker’s Phenoms won the entire tournament in the 13 year old and under category. This win qualified them to play in the AAU National Championship Tournament held in Memphis, TN the week of June 28th 2010.
The boys organized fundraisers and events, spoke with sponsors, and with the help of the community and their parents, they were able to raise enough money to travel to Memphis for the week. Coker’s Phenoms also invited a fourth player from our core team to make the trip with us.
The night before we left, my son came home from their last practice and said "coach is bringing two additional players with us, CT and SL. I told our son I doubted that would be the case, because CT and SL were both in 8th grade, CT was already 14, and SL would be 14 in a couple of weeks. For those of you unfamiliar with AAU rules, each team is allowed three "grade exceptions" which lets an older 7th grader play with his classmates. For example, if a child was held back a grade, or had an early birthday, a 14 year old is allowed to play, but only if he is in 7th grade. CT and SL were clearly ineligible, as they were too old and in the wrong grade.
That evening I e-mailed the coach (AC) all of the official AAU rules, to confirm that he understood those players would not be allowed to compete.
The next day, I spoke with the coach face-to-face before we left town for Memphis. The coach told me "I know those boys are not supposed to play. They are only coming down with us to have a vacation with their friends and to help us practice". I thought the matter was settled and we left for Memphis.
I flew down to Memphis with my family and two additional players. The rest of the team, including the two ineligible players, drove down with the coach.
Sunday: Coach wants to Cheat
We were scheduled to check in as a team at 1:00pm Sunday afternoon. We arrived at the registration location only to find out the team was already registered. They had arrived early. I took our boys through the registration line, and they were required to sign an identification card that had their name, birth date, grade in school, and picture on it. Once they signed it, they were given their official AAU athlete lanyard.
When we arrived at the official team practice later that day, I noticed that CT and SL also had official AAU athlete lanyards. They were registered as athletes.
At the end of the practice, I pulled the coach and his assistant coach (DC, his 20 year old son) aside and said that I wanted to confirm that CT and SL were only here to assist with the practices. The coaches told me that they intended to play the illegal players because they "looked around, and they don't believe all of the other players on competing teams are 13 years old".
I told the coach that we can't control what other teams do, only what our team does, and that it was wrong to play illegal players. The coach then said, "I plan to have them on the bench and in uniform, in case we need them".
At that point I told the coach that if he insisted on playing the illegal players, then my son would not be playing in the game tomorrow, and that I would check with the parents of the other three boys from our core team to see if they would be playing. The coach then said that he was late to a coaches meeting, and if it would make me feel better, I could attend the coaches meeting with him, and we could speak to a tournament official afterwards about the illegal players eligibility. I agreed to that course of action, and I followed him to the coaches meeting.
Unfortunately, on the way to the meeting, the coach told all of the players he was transporting that their friends would not be able to play with them, because I wouldn't allow it, and that our four players would refuse to play if he played the illegal players. All throughout the drive to the coaches meeting he told the players that without CT and SL the team wouldn't be competitive and that it was all my fault. Not once did he admit that what he was attempting to do was wrong.
When we arrived at the coaches meeting, all of the players riding with him started to yell at my family and our players. I can understand that they would be mad at me, but it was very upsetting to see them berate and belittle their own teammates, just because I was taking a stand against cheating.
When the coach's meeting ended, the coach's son (the 20 year old assistant coach), asked to take the two illegal players to meet with a tournament official. The three of them came back after about 10 minutes, and the assistant coach said "we're all set, I spoke with an official and he said that because the boys have been part of the team all year, and because one won't be 14 years old for another few weeks, they will be allowed to play". Even if I wanted to believe that statement, the facts were not correct. The illegal players had played on our 8th grade team all year - not the 7th grade team.
I said that I was surprised that an official would allow illegal players just because they had played with us before. At that time the coach asked his son to take me to meet the tournament official who gave the okay. The son nervously agreed, and he took me into the auditorium with the various officials. When we made it to the front of the auditorium, the official he had supposedly spoken with just a few minutes earlier was nowhere to be found. The son put on a charade by parading me in front of two or three groups of officials looking for this mystery man. Finally I suggested "let's just speak with someone else".
We approached an official and the assistant coach laid out the facts. At first he said CT was turning 14 in a few weeks (Which was a lie. He turned 14 in early June). He then said that SL was in 7th grade, but took some 8th grade classes (another lie). Finally he said the players were registered as grade exceptions. The official said that if they were registered as grade exceptions they should be okay. I then asked the official, “does a grade exception allow an 8th grader to play?” The official said no, a grade exception simply allows an older 7th grader to play.
The assistant coach danced around the issue a few more times, and the official was growing tired of his attempts. The official then said "are these two players going to be freshman in high school in a couple of months"? The coach said "yes" and the official said "your players are too old". I thought the matter was settled.
Meanwhile, the head coach and the rest of the team were waiting outside, and tempers were flaring with the friends of the illegal players yelling at our four boys, and the coach was doing nothing to stop it.
My wife stepped in and told the coach he should speak to the entire team and get the matter settled. The coach called the team together and said that because I didn't want the players to play, he wouldn't play them, but that he felt that all of the other teams were doing it. He never once mentioned that what he was doing was wrong, and his speech did nothing to quell the tension and animosity that had engulfed the team.
Monday: We lose our first game
We had our first game the next morning against Team NLP from Chicago. Their team was founded by former Chicago Bulls three-time NBA Champion, Dickey Simpkins. The team was very well coached, yet our team stuck with them the entire game.
We were up for most of the game, but in the end lost by two points. Even though we lost, the team seemed very content as this was our first game against national competition, and we held our own. I was happy because we held our own without having to use any illegal players. Even though the illegal players were on the bench, they were not listed on the official score sheet, and they did not play.
Tuesday: We lose our second game
On day two we played the Crescent City Eagles from Louisiana. We were down by 2-3 points at the half. In the end we lost by 19, but we did it without any illegal players. Only legitimate 13 year olds played and the illegal players were not listed on the official score sheet.
At the end of the game a handful of players started complaining that we would have won the game if CT and SL had played. One of the players, BK, approached my son and said "I don't even know why you are here - we don't need any of you".
Wednesday: We lose our third game
On day three we played the 15th ranked team in the country, Queen City Thunder from North Carolina. This team had just blown out another team by 47 points. We were tied at the half, and we were up by one point with two minutes to go in the game. In the end we ended up losing by 3 points. Once again, our team played great, and they did it without cheating.
Having lost three games, we were now out of contention for the championship, and we would continue in the classic (consolation) bracket for the rest of our games.
Thursday: Coach starts to cheat
The next morning the coach called me and said "because we are out of the running for the championship, I plan to play CT and SL today".
I reminded him that if we start winning In the consolation bracket, we could potentially play another four games. He said "if we can't play for the championship it doesn't matter, and that CT and SL had been patient all week".
I then asked if he thought it would be fair for the boys if they got caught, and therefore this might be their last game. He said "there is no way they could get caught", but to satisfy my concerns, he would put it to a team vote.
I asked him, are you seriously considering asking a bunch of 13 year olds if they thought it would be okay to cheat? I told him he should not be putting kids in that position, and that it wasn't a decision for kids to make, it is a decision for the adults. What type of adult would ask kids, in front of their friends, if they thought it would be okay to cheat?
During this phone conversation I asked the coach how he managed to secure an official lanyard with player credentials for CT and SL. He said that SL was listed on the official roster as a 7th grader (a lie), and he said that he used a younger players birth certificate and identification to register CT. CT registered as a 6th grade player left at home in Syracuse named TB.
We arrived at the gym for the Thursday morning game, and the coach called all of the kids center court. He gave a speech telling the boys that this might be their last game, and that he thought CT and SL should play, but that he would leave it up to the team.
At that time I addressed one of the illegal players directly. I looked at CT's lanyard, and he signed the name of TB. He was blatantly impersonating a 12 year old teammate who played with the team in the Pittsburgh qualifier, but didn't make the trip to Memphis. The coach had told the team a couple of weeks earlier that TB would not be making the trip, because he didn’t have enough practice time under his belt. In reality, the coach didn’t want TB to attend, because he wanted to steal his identity for CT to use.
I asked CT if he thought it was wrong to be impersonating TB and he said no. I then asked him if he would feel bad if he got caught, and as a result TB's eligibility as a player might be questioned at future events, and he said no - he wouldn't feel bad. Finally, I asked him how he would feel if TB was back in Syracuse impersonating CT, and if TB did something that could harm CT's reputation. CT said he wouldn't care. At that point, the coach said "ain't nobody impersonating nobody - it's not like he's robbing a bank".
I politely told the coach, “I agree it’s not like robbing a bank, but once an adult tells a child that it is okay to lie and cheat, that is a path that it is very difficult to get off of”.
The coach then said that he was going to walk away, and that he wanted each of the players to come up to him individually with their vote. Again - what a ridiculous idea for an adult leader to propose. He said he would keep their votes confidential, and that there would be no retribution against any players regardless of how they voted. He then said that it would be impossible to get caught, because any formal protest about the eligibility of a player had to be filed by Wednesday evening, and we had made it into Thursday with no questions being asked.
I told the coach if he was crazy enough to hold a team vote on cheating, then all of the players should know how their teammates voted. I told the coach and his son (the assistant coach) to leave the circle with me, and to let the team talk. The talk lasted all of 20 seconds and the "team" said they wanted the illegal players to play. The vote was 5-4 in favor of cheating. During the vote, one of the players "RC" said "Hell yes I want them to play".
I later asked RC, "what do you think your father would say if he knew you were cheating, and perhaps putting your eligibility for next year on the line"? RC answered "he wouldn't care".
As the team scorekeeper, I prepared the official score sheet, without the illegal players. Before the start of the game, the coach added CT and SL's name to the roster. He wasn't even a good cheater! He added their names in pencil, when all of the other names were in pen, and he even added CT's REAL NAME.
Right before the game started, I pulled the coaches aside and told them it still wasn't too late to do the right thing. Neither of them answered me. The game started, and the coach benched the four players that voted against cheating. Quarter after quarter the four boys sat, and the coach played the five players that voted in favor of cheating. Surprisingly, he didn't play CT or SL. He played the same five players for the entire game, all 32 minutes, with no substitutions.
Although our boys were being unfairly persecuted, they still participated in the team huddles, and they were prepared to play if called upon.
Believe it or not, the team won the game by 2 points on a buzzer beater - and they did it with all legitimate 13 year old players.
After the game I congratulated the team, even though our boys were close to tears because they didn't get to play. I then told the team that they should be very proud of getting the win without cheating.
The coach then announced that at our next game that evening, CT and SL would not only play, they would be starting. Once again I protested in front of the team and coach, asking them why they would want to risk disqualification when they had just proven they could win without cheating. At this point the coach’s 13 year old son announced to our boys that we should just go home because they didn't need us to win. Voices were raised and some kids stood toe-to-toe, so I quickly removed our boys from the gym.
To further complicate matters, one of the boys who didn't want to cheat drove down in the coach's van and he was staying with the coach in his hotel room. That player’s family contacted us and asked if he could stay the rest of the week with us. The parents were so disgusted with the actions of the coach, that they made arrangements for the player to fly home with us.
After conferring with other parents at home, we decided that we wouldn't play in the game that evening. The coach had already benched the boys in the first game of the day, and we didn't want to risk their reputations by having them play alongside illegal players in the evening game.
That evening I went to the game to return our boys uniforms, and to see for myself if the illegal players were in the game. I left our boys back at the hotel. The illegal players did not start the game, but one of them did enter the game in the first half. They were playing a team from Arkansas.
At that point the deception of this coach was no longer hypothetical. He was using illegal players in an actual game.
At half time I returned the uniforms to the coach, and no words were exchanged. I then walked over to the head coach of the Arkansas team, and I suggested to him that if his team lost the game, he should invest the time and money in filing a formal complaint against Coker's Phenoms.
Our conversation was short and sweet. I told him four of our players quit the team because we were afraid the coach was going to play illegal players. The coach said he already suspected something was wrong, and had already prepared a formal protest before the game started. He said that they had a scout at our morning game, and he knew that the coach played the same 5 players for the entire game, even though he had multiple players on the bench. He mentioned that he saw our first game of the tournament, when one of the benched players had more than 20 points. He said that once he noticed that four players were benched that morning, and those same four players didn’t show up in the evening, he could tell something was wrong.
He thanked me for confirming his suspicions, especially because he said his team was entirely comprised of 6th graders! They were “playing up” in the tournament.
At that point I felt our duty to the team and the sport was done, and I returned to the hotel.
Friday: We get our own game
The next morning, my family and the three additional players that quit the team were packing up getting ready to leave the hotel. We were heading home. Unbeknownst to us at the time, Coker’s Phenoms had defeated the Arkansas team by 3 points, and the illegal players scored more than 3 points in that game.
As we were leaving the hotel, two “AAU agents” arrived. They looked like characters right out of a movie. Tall, intimidating, and complete with walkie-talkies. They said that they heard about our boys quitting the team, and although they couldn’t discuss the status of the ongoing investigation, the wanted to offer our boys an opportunity to rejoin the tournament. I asked how they found us, and they said that everyone had to provide hotel information to AAU when we registered on Sunday.
The AAU officials stated that another team had to drop out of the tournament, and they wanted to know if our four boys would be interested in taking their spot. They told us that just because they didn’t want us to leave the tournament didn’t mean that they believed Coker’s Phenoms were cheating, but that they planned to continue to investigate.
I talked with our boys, and they all decided they wanted to stay and compete. The only trouble now is that we only had four players. Our players were so happy to get a chance to play again, they didn’t care. We were planning on competing with just four players.
I explained to the AAU officials that in addition to only having four players, we had already turned in our Coker’s Phenoms uniforms and we had nothing to play in. The AAU officials came to our rescue again. They made some calls and “rounded up some local Memphis boys” to help us out (in their words).
We arrived at the gym that afternoon, and five minutes before the game started three local Memphis boys arrived with seven red “piney” uniforms. We had a few minutes to introduce ourselves, and then we hit the court. The three Memphis boys, Abraham, Job, and Eric, were GREAT kids.
In addition to not having enough players, and not having any uniforms, we also didn’t have a coach. I’ve been a team statistician for many years, but I’ve never coached a game. I enlisted the help of my 15 year old son, and we gave it our best shot.
Our game was against a team from just outside of New York City, the Nor’east Lightning. This team recently won their second straight NY District Championship, with an 86-38 win over a team from Brooklyn. Last year, the team won the 12U National Championship in DIII.
Their impressive history of wins was not just in the past, they were also 3-0 in their pool division games in Memphis. Beating one team by 8, another team by 15, and their third opponent by 34.
In addition to their winning streak, they also had 12 players, 2 “real” coaches, and complete uniforms.
When our team of misfits took the court, we definitely looked out of place in our red pineys and mis-matched shorts. Once the game started though, the look of our uniforms and the fact that we never played with our three local players didn’t make a difference.
At the end of the first quarter we were down by 1 point. At the end of the half we were up by 7 points. The coach of the other team is to be commended, because during the halftime break he found our weak spot, and he instructed his team to put a man-press on us. By the end of the third quarter we were down by 2 points.
In the end, we lost the game by 5 points, but I don’t think any of our kids were sad. Sure, we were disappointed, but we had hung tough with a team that won a national championship last year, and a team that was undefeated in their pool play of this tournament.
At the end of the game we shook hands with the other team, and the opposing coach said it best:
“your kids played with a lot of heart”.
We then had our picture taken with the other team, and we wished them well as they progressed on in the tournament”.
No trash talking, no complaining about the officials, just good honest basketball – the way things were supposed to be.
One other important fact – I mentioned that Abraham, Job, and Eric were great kids – and they were. What I failed to mention is that they were also all in 6th grade.
At the end of the game my son said “you know Dad, if we won that game they’d probably make a movie about us”. Even without winning and continuing on, that game meant the world to the kids, and me as a parent.
I would like to end the story on a high note, but if you’ve read this far you are probably wondering:
-
Whatever happened to Coker’s Phenoms?
On Saturday, after we left Memphis, my son got a text message from one of the other players on the team. The text said, “we got disqualified, don’t tell your Dad”.
My son asked what happened, and his former teammate gave this account:
They arrived at their game Friday night, and the Arkansas team they thought they had beat was warming up on the floor. One or more AAU officials ushered the team into a separate room and told them they had been caught cheating, and that the Arkansas team would be continuing on in the tournament.
The official asked who CT was, and no one raised their hand. The official then asked who TB was (the player left home in Syracuse that CT was impersonating), and CT raised his hand. The official removed the lanyard from CTs neck and asked him why he signed TB when he was really CT. CT simply said “I don’t know”.
On Saturday, after we left Memphis, my son got a text message from one of the other players on the team. The text said, “we got disqualified, don’t tell your Dad”.
My son asked what happened, and his former teammate gave this account:
They arrived at their game Friday night, and the Arkansas team they thought they had beat was warming up on the floor. One or more AAU officials ushered the team into a separate room and told them they had been caught cheating, and that the Arkansas team would be continuing on in the tournament.
The official asked who CT was, and no one raised their hand. The official then asked who TB was (the player left home in Syracuse that CT was impersonating), and CT raised his hand. The official removed the lanyard from CTs neck and asked him why he signed TB when he was really CT. CT simply said “I don’t know”.
The official then asked SL if he was in 8th grade, and why he signed a form stating he was in 7th grade, and he said "I take 7th, 8th, and 9th grade classes".
The official asked the coach what he thought about CT impersonating TB, and believe it or not, the coach threw the 14 year old under the bus. The coach told the investigator that he didn’t know CT was going to impersonate TB.
The official spent the next few minutes talking about what a serious offense cheating was, and he suggested that CT could be brought up on charges of identity theft if TB’s mother back in Syracuse wanted to press charges. He also suggested that perhaps the coach could be brought up on civil charges by TB’s mother by encouraging and aiding CT in assuming TB’s identity.
At this point the coach admitted what he did was wrong, to both the investigators and the players.
The official then asked the coaches to turn away from the players, and he asked the players to tell him by a show of hands, how many of them knew they were cheating from the very beginning. There were seven players in the room (five 13 year olds and the two 14 year olds), and four players raised their hands stating that they knew what they were doing was wrong from the very beginning. One of the four players who raised his hand was the coach's own 13 year old son.
The official told the two coaches that he would see to it that they never coach in AAU again. He told the players that their names would be going into a special file, and that they would be scrutinized much more in the future whenever they register for tournaments.
The official told the players that even though their coaches would never be allowed in an AAU tournament again, the players were being given a second chance. They will be watched much more closely in the future, but they were not being banned as their coach was.
After hearing this story, I contacted AAU to confirm that the names of our four boys would not be placed in this special file. The official took down our information and confirmed that a note would be made absolving our four from any involvement in this scandal.
I then asked the official two lingering questions:
1) I mentioned how the coach told the players that if they didn’t get caught by Wednesday, that they wouldn’t get caught. The official told me that in the coaches meeting they told coaches that if they have a legitimate protest to make, they should make it early in the week, because if they make it after Wednesday AAU might not have the time to investigate the claims prior to the end of the tournament. The Coker’s Phenoms coach used this information to assume he couldn’t get caught.
2) I asked him how was it that the coach was able to register these two players illegally. For SL, the coach had him sign a form that stated he was in 7th grade. All the rest of the information on the registration sheet was correct. For CT, I knew he had registered with TB’s information. What I didn’t know was that he submitted a picture of CT and said that it was TB. The registration deadline for the tournament was 6/9. The coach had planned this entire fraud at least three weeks in advance, because he took the time to delete TB’s picture and replace it with CT’s picture.
In the end, the four boys that quit the team learned a valuable life lesson. I wanted to make sure I recorded these events while they were fresh in my mind, in the hope that other coaches (or players) out there who might be tempted to cheat can realize the error of their ways before they embarrass themselves, their team, or their sport as Coker’s Phenoms did.
The official spent the next few minutes talking about what a serious offense cheating was, and he suggested that CT could be brought up on charges of identity theft if TB’s mother back in Syracuse wanted to press charges. He also suggested that perhaps the coach could be brought up on civil charges by TB’s mother by encouraging and aiding CT in assuming TB’s identity.
At this point the coach admitted what he did was wrong, to both the investigators and the players.
The official then asked the coaches to turn away from the players, and he asked the players to tell him by a show of hands, how many of them knew they were cheating from the very beginning. There were seven players in the room (five 13 year olds and the two 14 year olds), and four players raised their hands stating that they knew what they were doing was wrong from the very beginning. One of the four players who raised his hand was the coach's own 13 year old son.
The official told the two coaches that he would see to it that they never coach in AAU again. He told the players that their names would be going into a special file, and that they would be scrutinized much more in the future whenever they register for tournaments.
The official told the players that even though their coaches would never be allowed in an AAU tournament again, the players were being given a second chance. They will be watched much more closely in the future, but they were not being banned as their coach was.
After hearing this story, I contacted AAU to confirm that the names of our four boys would not be placed in this special file. The official took down our information and confirmed that a note would be made absolving our four from any involvement in this scandal.
I then asked the official two lingering questions:
1) I mentioned how the coach told the players that if they didn’t get caught by Wednesday, that they wouldn’t get caught. The official told me that in the coaches meeting they told coaches that if they have a legitimate protest to make, they should make it early in the week, because if they make it after Wednesday AAU might not have the time to investigate the claims prior to the end of the tournament. The Coker’s Phenoms coach used this information to assume he couldn’t get caught.
2) I asked him how was it that the coach was able to register these two players illegally. For SL, the coach had him sign a form that stated he was in 7th grade. All the rest of the information on the registration sheet was correct. For CT, I knew he had registered with TB’s information. What I didn’t know was that he submitted a picture of CT and said that it was TB. The registration deadline for the tournament was 6/9. The coach had planned this entire fraud at least three weeks in advance, because he took the time to delete TB’s picture and replace it with CT’s picture.
In the end, the four boys that quit the team learned a valuable life lesson. I wanted to make sure I recorded these events while they were fresh in my mind, in the hope that other coaches (or players) out there who might be tempted to cheat can realize the error of their ways before they embarrass themselves, their team, or their sport as Coker’s Phenoms did.
