In the saga of Lamont Bryant and Marshall boys basketball, two things have been lost in the glare of a lawsuit, a player threat to boycott the upcoming season and allegations against legendary girls coach Dorothy Gaters.
The first is that once again, it’s Hoops Overemphasis 101 in the Chicago Public League. The other is that when it comes to Bryant and his loss of a basketball coaching job, we have been here before.
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Principal Juan Gardner fired Bryant as Marshall’s coach Oct. 2. It seemed a stunning move in the wake of Marshall’s two straight Class AA boys third-place finishes. But though administrators haven’t talked much, it’s clear they are alleging he exercised too much control over his program and had shortcomings in his conduct as a coach.
Bryant’s attorneys filed a lawsuit Oct. 18 in U.S. District Court against Gardner, Gaters, Marshall and the Chicago Board of Education to get his job back. His players are protesting the firing vigorously.
There was no lawsuit and seemingly little player discontent after Young Principal Joyce Kenner asked for and received Bryant’s resignation as boys coach in early November 2002, once again shortly before the season and despite his 88-28 record as coach.
Kenner declined Wednesday to go deeply into specifics but believed Bryant was running his own show too much for her liking.
“I want to make sure the basketball program belongs to the school and that one person is not over the program because he happens to be the coach,” she said.
Kenner also made it clear that while Bryant was an excellent physical education teacher, she didn’t believe he treated all his players properly. She said that in at least one case he blocked phone contact between a college coach and a recruit and that, according to players, he was withholding recruiting mail.
“It’s not incumbent on a coach to control that entire scenario,” she said of recruiting. “Parents should be involved, kids should be involved and coaches should be involved, but not just exclusively the coach.”
As Lamont Morris — he began to go by Bryant after college — Bryant starred in basketball at South Shore and played at Illinois-Chicago. He quit the UIC team early in the 1985-86 season as a senior after losing the starting point guard spot, but he stayed in school.
Bryant was an assistant girls basketball coach at Young in May 1998 when he was a surprise choice to succeed George Stanton, who stepped down as boys coach after winning the Class AA title. Then-assistant coach Cyrus McGinnis was the popular choice as successor, but Bryant rode out a wave of initial discontent.
In September 2003, he took over a storied Marshall program that had fallen on hard times, going 24-6 that season, the first of four straight years with more than 20 victories.
Bryant is fighting this dismissal, hoping to coach a loaded 2007-08 team to another Elite Eight. His suit alleges that Gaters, in her role as athletic director, has undermined the boys program as its success became greater than that of her program.
Bryant and Gaters both have been declining to answer questions. James Sotos, Bryant’s attorney, has charged that the coach was fired even though he had not violated terms of an agreement with Gardner regarding his employment as coach, terms that included attire, scheduling and allowing players to compete in other sports.
The core of the suit, though, is the contention the boys basketball program got lesser treatment than did the girls program, which Sotos called a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which has led to the boom in girls athletics.
That included, he has alleged, denial of preseason open gym this year for the boys team, while Gaters arranged extensive use of the gym for her players. The suit charges that when Bryant complained about the inequity, he was fired, which it describes as retaliation also in violation of Title IX.
If the charges are even partly true, it will be an unfortunate smudge on Gaters’ more than three-decade career, which has included seven state titles and a 1998 trip to the White House, where she was honored by President Bill Clinton.
Bryant’s team — make that former team — has stood solidly behind its coach — make that ex-coach. They helped lead an after-school rally Oct. 11 as well as a student walkout during the school day Oct. 17. Some players also have threatened to transfer or sit out.
“Lamont is a basketball coach who loves these kids and accomplished a lot for them, and in their minds they need to be around him and want to be around him, and [Marshall] threw him out at the last minute,” Sotos said Thursday.
Someone, however — Bryant, an assistant coach, parents, anyone — needed to make these players understand that walking out of school and perhaps jeopardizing a college athletic scholarship by missing a season is placing basketball way too far ahead of education.
You have to admire their loyalty, but you also have to question their priorities. One Marshall teacher certainly did during the Oct. 11 rally.
“Protest about studying and getting into college,” she yelled.
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*Read Barry Temkin’s blog “Upon Further Review” at chicagosports.com/temkin