Remembering a Different ‘Coach Carter'

Six years ago, UC Berkeley seniors Marvin Miranda and Kao Saechao laced up their sneakers for basketball practice at their alma mater Richmond High School, only to find the gymnasium doors strapped with heavy padlocks.

A handwritten note by head coach Ken Carter was taped to the front of the door, reading: "Practice cancelled. Report to the library."

With those words, Miranda, Saechao and the rest of the 1999 Richmond boys' basketball team were swept up in a media frenzy, as everyone from local reporters to then-Gov. Gray Davis flocked to Richmond, shedding national limelight on Carter's decision to lock out all 45 members of the boys' basketball program at the height of their undefeated season.

"No one knew it was going to be that big," says Haidee Foust-Whitmore, who was the principal of Richmond High School at the time. "The school was transformed into a media event when the governor picked up on it as part of his educational platform and made a visit for the first time. It's a major event when you have Secret Service come out, you can imagine the impact of something like that has on a place like 23rd Street."

But when the attention surrounding the lockout resurfaced this year with the premiere of the movie "Coach Carter," Miranda and Saechao were conspicuously absent from the hubbub. Saechao chose not to see the movie and Miranda, despite appearing with five former teammates as an extra in the film's final scene, avoided the crowds at the theaters, opting to watch the movie at a campus screening.

Both say the media teamed up to create an embellished-and at times inaccurate-recount of the lockout, which lasted more than a week and prohibited varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams from practices and games until players improved grades.

"I like to tell everyone that the movie is probably 50 percent true and 50 percent Hollywood," says Saechao, who was a sophomore on the junior varsity team. "The characters were falsely portrayed. Coach Carter himself was embellished."

He adds that the team did not reach the state championship that year, as shown in the movie. They lost in the second round of regional playoffs.

Miranda, a junior at the time, says the lockout was unnecessary and implemented by Carter in part to avoid playing the league's top-ranked team, Fremont, the following week.

"He didn't need to lock out the entire team," he says. "There was only one (player) on varsity that was failing ... a lot of people thought he locked out the team because we were going to play the number one team and we weren't going to have our star player because of grades."

Carter had asked his players to sign a contract to maintain a 2.3 GPA and front-row attendance in every class. He also required his team to wear ties while traveling to away games.

The lockout, some former players say, made for a lively Hollywood script, but became so hyped that it overshadowed the other realities of the time.

Miranda says the movie shied away from showing the players' strained relationships with Carter, which Miranda says prompted at least three of his teammates to quit the team.

Miranda himself left the varsity team midseason, returning only when the junior varsity coaches approached him to play for them.

Lionel Arnold was a sophomore on the varsity team and now plays football at Humboldt State. He says he found it difficult to establish the kind of relationship with Carter that the movie portrays-a father figure who guided his players to success on and off the court.

"It was hard because he's got this mentality like he's the man and you can't go over his word," Arnold, 23, says. "It's hard because we had egos too, and when egos collide he kicked you out of the gym."

Arnold says the movie was "like a slap in the face."

"It portrays us like hooligans and Coach Carter comes and all of a sudden we come around, but that wasn't the case," he says. "Coach Carter might have had an influence, but he didn't change everybody's life."

Darryl Robinson, who coached the junior varsity and freshman teams with Carter the year prior to the lockout, agrees that events in the movie were not always accurate.

"Hollywood missed it by a country mile," he says. "The kids buying drugs and shooting people, that never happened. The kids were a good group to begin with, there were no troublemakers, there was none of that."

Nonetheless, Robinson says the publicity from the lockout, although excessive, carried an optimistic message for the community.

"It carries something positive for the city of Richmond: that you can go to college if you keep up what you're doing," he says.

All members of the 1999 team went on to four-year universities or community colleges, some earning athletic scholarships. But many say their success had little to do with Carter's influence.

"He might be running around saying he got us fame and fortune, but all of us were working hard to get it in the future anyway," says Chris Dixon, 23, a sophomore during the lockout.

Dixon, who has gone on to play football at Humboldt State and semi-professional arena football in Seattle, has been one of Carter's most vocal critics. He says he clashed with Carter on a near-daily basis, and was kicked out of practice on numerous occasions for butting heads with his coach.

Dixon says Carter would criticize his players if Carter's son Damien-who played on the team for four years-failed to perform up to his father's standards.

"The movie portrayed him as a great man and coach, but they never showed the other side," Dixon says.

Carter did not respond to multiple calls for comment.

The lockout, Dixon believes, was staged for the media so that Carter-an entrepreneur and businessman-could propel himself into the public eye.

The week was subsequently more about the perks of celebrity than the importance of academics, some former players say. The team received free Adidas shoes, invitations to appear on television and an upgrade in road game transportation from school buses to Dodge Durangos, Arnold says. Carter also took his team to visit then-Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco.

Carter, who left his post at Richmond High in 2002, has since embarked on a whirlwind of public appearances as a motivational speaker on shows like The View to ESPN, and has appeared in the pages of People Magazine.

In 2000, he rode a scooter from Richmond to Sacramento to protest low teacher salaries. Two years later, he carried the Olympic torch through his hometown. His work with the Coach Ken Carter Foundation aims to help youth development in athletics and academics, according to the foundation's Web site.

Willie LaNere, Carter's longtime friend, mentor and former basketball coach, has known Carter for more than 20 years. He says he his proud of Carter's accomplishments, and that people's criticisms may arise from jealousy of Carter's celebrity status.

"There's a certain amount of jealously, animosity, pride, a lot of things that go on in people's minds," he says. "But I wouldn't be one to judge (Carter)."

LaNere remembers Carter as one of the most hardworking players under his tutelage at Contra Costa Community College, where Carter played for two years.

"We go way back, he's always my student no matter what," LaNere says. "I'm happy for him, for everything he's accomplished. He deserves it."

Today, the lockout for some is a topic of hazy recollection, a blur of events that came and went six years ago, buried under memories of other, more pressing issues.

"It never comes up," says Charles Ramsey, school boardmember for the West Contra Costa Unified School District who served the year of the lockout. "As a matter of fact I'd forgotten about it. Only when the movie came out did it refresh my memory."

Foust-Whitmore credits the lockout with a significant shift in the way Richmond viewed academic priorities.

"The changes that took place were phenomenal," she says. "Instead of talking about sports, people were talking about grades, the teachers' roles, the responsibilities of academics."

But for some players, the lockout will never be more than a publicity stunt that fell short of making the life-altering changes shown in the movie.

"Nothing out of this benefitted us or the school," Arnold says. "It only benefitted a few people who tried to boost their prestige."

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