The definition of winning: For GW Danville, it’s more difficult than it looks on the court

By JASON WOLF
Register & Bee sports writer
Published: February 12, 2008

Jerail Howerton writhes on the hardwood basketball court, howling in pain from the cramp in his side.

He pulls his shirt up over his head, shielding his face from the view of snickering teammates taking a break from running wind sprints across the floor of the George Washington High gymnasium.

Jerail’s shorter and hardier than most of the other players. His charcoal hair and ebony skin accentuate dark, gleaming eyes and a megawatt smile that can light a room.

But as he lays belly up, languishing on the gym floor, it’s appropriate the 17-year-old sophomore’s face is hidden. In a way, any of these players could be under that shirt. In a way, nearly all of them are crying out for help.

And every day, be it in a game or a practice, Bobby Martin tries to use a basketball as a life-saving device.

“In my short time coaching I’ve buried too many players. Young kids,” the GW basketball coach said. Obituaries of veritable children sit on his desk. “You win championships and all your team ends up in jail or dead on the street, what have you done?”

GW, state runners up a year ago and the No. 2-ranked Class AAA team in Virginia by The Associated Press, has the chance to complete its second unbeaten regular season in three years when the Eagles host Franklin County tonight. But the win-loss record is just one way of measuring this team’s success. Winning, for the Eagles, is much more difficult than it looks on the court.

“What most people see is what they see on game night,” Martin said. “That’s not half of what you do. When a kid comes up after practice and says, ‘Coach, can I have two or three dollars so I can get something to eat? I don’t have any food at home,’ you change the way you look at things, ’cause it’s bigger than just practice and going home.

“It’s so much bigger than basketball.”

The last time GW faced Franklin County, on Jan. 25 in Rocky Mount, Jerail played in his first game of the season. The backup point guard sat out the first 16 because he was academically ineligible. That same night Jerail returned to the court, 10 GW players - three junior varsity and seven members of the ninth-grade squad, which is more than half the team - missed their games because of academic issues.

“They should have learned from me,” Jerail said. He smiles and laughs. “They ain’t learned from me, learned from my mistakes.”

Jerail never learned from the mistakes of those who preceded him, either. And every year more kids learn the hard way. The hard way, after all, is the only way many of them know.

Six hundred and six students dropped out of Danville Public Schools between the 2000-01 and 2004-05 school years. Those are the state’s numbers as provided by the school district.

Martin, who also teaches sociology at GW, leans back on the chair in the corner of his cluttered office at the high school, an office adjacent a locker room and no bigger than a pair of parking spaces. His players and assistant coaches come in and leave as they wish, and he lets a youngster who asks politely use the computer in the opposite corner of the room.

Martin has a commanding presence. He’s taller and thicker than most everyone else and can roar in a booming tone that demands respect. His ultra-short hair and thin moustache are curiously in contrast with the gobs of patience he exhibits.

The coach’s eyes redden and he squints and swallows hard. His voice lowers to a nearly inaudible level.

“You talk about Jerail. Think about how many kids in this school that didn’t pass enough classes and aren’t playing sports. You don’t hear about them,” Martin said. “Kids get lost in the shuffle. We don’t have enough Band-Aids and tape to catch them all. That’s just being honest about it.”

Marsha Mendenhall, the varsity boys’ official scorekeeper, said Danville shares some of the same problems as any major city and talked about the lives some of these kids lead when they’re not in school. She’s taken players home after practice if they don’t have a ride, and recently arrived at a child’s street to find it cordoned off by police because someone had been shot.

“I didn’t know whether to let him out of the car or not,” Mendenhall said.

Instability at home frequently leads to lower levels of educational achievement and ultimately reduced earning potential, according to Dr. Patrick F. Fagan, a former high-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In a paper he authored for The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Fagan concluded that “Simply put, whether or not a child’s parents are married and stay married has a massive affect on his or her future prosperity and that of the next generation.”

Of the 30 players on the GW varsity and junior varsity boys’ basketball teams this season, the number of kids who have both parents living together can be counted on one hand.

“You’re almost weird if you do have both parents,” Martin said.

Jerail’s mother and her boyfriend were in attendance at the first Franklin County game, having made the more than hour-long trek from Danville to lend the youngster their support.

As for his father, who Jerail said he talks to every day?

“We don’t really talk about basketball no more,” Jerail said, growing quiet. “’Cause I wasn’t playing.”

“Well I hope it doesn’t sound - it’s not being egotistical or arrogant - I tell them kids, ‘I’m your father. I’m your daddy,’” Martin said. “‘Not your blood daddy, but because of my role I have to be a father to you. And I have to show you, if your dad’s not around, I got to show you what you can be.’

“We have a society that tells you that if you’re not an NBA player or a rap star or an entertainer, that you’re nobody… I told Jerail the other week, I said, ‘It’s a lie you’ve been told that if you’re not rich and famous you’re nobody. Success is based on what you put it at, or to me, having your own house, your own job, taking care of your family, being able to get up in the morning with nobody shooting at you. That’s success,’” Martin said. “If it’s nothing but a trailer, well at least it’s yours. But our society looks down on that. If you live in a trailer, you trailer trash, or you live in the ghetto, and you never going to get out. No, that’s a lie.”

Martin’s cell phone rings. It’s a basketball coach from the College of William & Mary interested in learning more about one of the GW players.

Martin politely and repeatedly addresses the voice on the other end of the line as “Coach” as he rifles through papers searching for accurate statistics. He knows off the top of his head what the young man is shooting from the foul line, and he agrees that the player’s free throw percentage needs improvement.

Many of the GW players have the skills to play basketball at the next level, but few have the grades to take full advantage of their opportunities. And this unfortunate trend is nothing new.

Just last summer, then-GW senior Ridge McKeither helped the N.C. Gaters, an AAU team based in Greensboro, win their third U19 national title in seven years. McKeither was named tournament MVP.

He’s playing this season at Kilgore College, a junior college in Texas, because his grades weren’t good enough to go to a major Division I program. Virginia Tech was interested in offering him a scholarship to play basketball in the Atlantic Coast Conference, one of the strongest in the country.

“I have a little saying: Use basketball, don’t let the basketball use you. Too many of our kids and too many of our people, we have let the basketball use us,” Martin said. “What I tell players is, ‘God gave you a gift, and you can use that basketball to get the things you need in life - education.’”

According to the Virginia High School League’s eligibility requirements, a student must have passed at least five classes during the previous semester to participate in interscholastic athletics. A GW student could have five Ds and two Fs and still be academically eligible.

“Yeah, and someone might say, ‘That’s sad. That’s too low,’” Martin said. “The flip side of it is, nobody pushes to have five Ds, but I would rather for a kid to have five Ds and be with me so I can try to teach and show them, than have five Fs and be on the streets…”

The coach clasps both hands together and leans forward in his chair, as if about to reveal a secret.

“What some people don’t understand is, that for some of these kids, without basketball or football or track, they wouldn’t even be in high school,” he said. “They wouldn’t even be in high school.

“So use sports to hang on to them, and hopefully the light will come on and they’ll say, ‘Hey, I can go to college. Hey, I can do something with my life, other than sell drugs and steal and lie.’”

Martin pulls a crudely cut and laminated card from his billfold, which he carries everywhere as a reminder of what’s most important to him. It reads:

Fifty years from now it will not matter what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in, how much you had in your bank account, or what your clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because you were important in the life of a child.  - Anonymous

Jerail has been practicing with the Eagles all season, in violation of VHSL rules. He’s been sitting on the bench during games, without a uniform, and cheering on his classmates.

“I feel I had to keep him around,” Martin said.

Jerail’s also been attending team study sessions and having teachers tutor him in an effort to improve his grades.

Martin sat beside him on the bench during a game one night. The coach told Jerail he knew it wasn’t easy to attend all of the practices and show up to the games when the youngster knew he couldn’t play. He also told Jerail it was a sign of maturity if he was able to stick it out and do it.

“(I could have said), ‘You get eligible, and when you get eligible you come back.’ But you can’t turn your back on kids,” Martin said.

“What I’ve learned to do is try to use my team and my coaches to make a difference.”

He tells a story about a friend who came home from work to find his wife’s car gone, his wife gone, his baby gone, the furniture gone.

“What do you do?” Martin asked. “Do you keep going or do you quit?”

He also tells a story about a colleague who was in the midst of receiving cancer treatment when his wife died, and said the only way he got through it was with the help of God and with what he learned from playing sports.

He has told these stories before.

“All of us have been dealt some bad hands,” Martin said, “but you can take what you learn from sports - if you’re down by 20, do you quit or you keep fighting? If you’re catching cramps, you’re catching cramps. You going to quit or you going to finish the deal?”

Jerail struggles to pick himself up off the floor, at Martin’s urging. The teen, holding his side, kneading that cramp, runs the length of the gymnasium and back, outracing several teammates.

There’s still a shot at another unbeaten season, after all. There’s still a potential run at another state title.

“There’s different levels of winning,” Martin said. “If Jerail’s got six Ds, or whatever it is, for him that may be winning. Him coming to school every day because he’s on the basketball team - that’s winning. Him staying out of trouble because he’s on the basketball team - that’s winning.

“I think Jerail’s winning. I think a lot of these other guys are winning. Is it a blowout? No. But they’re winning,” he laughs.

“It’s not a blowout, but they’re winning.”

Jerail grimacing, smiling, sweating, once again runs the length of the gymnasium and back.

Then he runs it again.

And again.

And again.

Contact Jason Wolf at or (434) 791-7996.