The high school basketball season came to an end in Hudson County on Wednesday night, when the last team standing, St. Anthony, lost in the NJSIAA Parochial B North finale to St. Patrick’s of Elizabeth, who most certainly will be the team to unseat the Friars as the Tournament of Champions victor.
In this corner’s eyes, the season couldn’t have ended any sooner.
Not wishing any of the local teams any misfortune, but this was a year, especially on the boys’ basketball standpoint, to quickly forget — and it had nothing to do with the level of play on the hardwood.
Quite honestly, it was the worst year for off-the-court controversies that this area has seen in the last 25 years that this columnist has been covering local sports. It was downright disgusting and despicable.
Need proof?
• There were a handful of arrests of key players — players who then somehow made their way back to their respective teams and played after their arrests.
• There were several questionable transfers; this coming on the heels of an apparently stricter transfer rule established by the NJSIAA.
• And there were several denials by coaches and administrators that claim they did not a single thing wrong, saying that they were just doing “what everyone else is doing.”
First, let’s address the arrests. In the past four months, we had three players, all over the age of 18, get nabbed for an assortment of crimes.
We had one who allegedly wrote a series of bad checks and allegedly had possession of a handgun that drew him two different arrests.
We had another who was arrested and charged with armed robbery of a Chinese food delivery man — no less with an off-duty police officer right there, watching the entire event transpire.
And recently, we had a player who was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, spent more than two weeks incarcerated on the charges and just two days after he was released from jail, he was back on the hardwood, playing for his school.
Now, why are these young men – can’t use the term “kids” here, because it doesn’t apply – being allowed to play high school basketball? True, everyone deserves the “innocent until proven guilty” treatment, but that applies in the court of law. It should not apply to the basketball court or in and phase of the field of high school athletics.
No, in high school athletics, we should be promoting the good kids, the ones that don’t run afoul of the law. We should be protecting the student/athletes that follow every law of the land. Once these young men allegedly committed the crimes that they are charged with, then they lost every privilege of being a high school athlete.
The one shining member of society, the one charged with the armed robbery of the delivery man, was removed from his school and restricted to home schooling. That was the right move to make.
However, just 10 days after his arrest, he shows up at another local game with another team, telling school officials that he was transferring to that school. And lo and behold, he sat on that team’s bench for another game. How does that happen? You seriously can’t make this stuff up.
The one who wrote the bad checks and allegedly had the gun? He had been through two other Hudson County schools and ended up this year at a third school within the humble confines of the county. How does that happen?
And the last legal eagle allegedly got into a fight at a party, bashed someone with a bottle, got arrested for assault with the bottle and spends more than two weeks behind bars.
On Tuesday, he was released from incarceration. Wednesday, he was back in school and sitting on his team’s bench for a game. Friday, he played.
We kid you not.
When his coach was contacted and asked why he was able to play in a high school basketball game just three days after being released from jail, his response was: “He’s enrolled as a full-time student at our high school. As long as he’s a student, everyone in our administration agreed that he should be able to play.”
Yeah, right.
As for the transfers, Hudson County definitely led the state in the amount of boys’ high school players playing for a different school than they played for last year.
St. Anthony had at least four. High Tech had three. St. Peter’s Prep had two. Pick any school in the county and chances are that there was a kid who shuffled his way into that new school and was able to play either sitting out some time or in some cases right away.
What happened to the stricter NJSIAA transfer policy of sitting out a year? Well, all a student needs to do is change his address and he can be eligible to play at the new school — and in some cases, right from the first minute of the season.
Well, in Hudson County, U-Haul and Ryder must have been very busy over the summer, because we had basketball players moving all over the map.
That so-called stricter NJSIAA transfer policy was circumvented time after time this year by a simple change of address form.
It boggles my mind when a kid gets dismissed from one school for some reason (i.e. academics, discipline, what have you) and he magically appears on the roster of another school, without missing a beat. Where’s the educational value here?
And as for the denials, every single coach contacted this year said two things. One, that they were only abiding by the rules that were given to them. And two, they were all quick to point the fingers at other schools that were apparently either doing the same thing or in their minds, even worse.
Well, there are other rules to follow, like the rules of common sense. If a kid is dismissed from another school for some reason, that should send up the white flag right there. Just because the kid can put an orange orb into a round metal ring doesn’t absolve him for any past discretions.
And by stating that every other school is doing similar things doesn’t exactly make what your school is doing any more right.
It’s almost like the grammar school kid who gets nabbed for doing something wrong, and then pointing the finger and saying, “Well, he started it.” That doesn’t make what the initial kid did right.
So to this high school basketball season, we say goodbye and good riddance. Sayonara to arrest reports and incident reports and transfer waivers and denial after denial. Bye-bye to on-the-court fights and in-the-stands altercations.
For ages, Hudson County has been the hotbed of basketball talent. No question, there were talented players and teams again this year. But this was a season that left a sour taste in the mouths of many – and there were obviously plenty of reasons why.
To comment on this story on-line, click on the NEW www.hudsonreporter.com, and then click on Sports, and leave a comment at the end of the story! Jim Hague can be reached at ogsmar@aol.com.