How did James Hardy slip through the cracks
- Thread starter snowling
- Start date
Such a sad story. James had so much going for him as well as so much against him. I really think that the loss of Hep was the fatal blow. Hep had done so much to help him.
If that isn't a tragic story I've never heard one...and I've heard a lot of them as a business manager and an alternative school counselor. This is a story to make one shed tears...mental illness is as devastating as cancer...it robs you of your dignity and life and happiness. That Hardy slipped through the cracks is the story of mental illness in America today.
James...I hope you found the peace in death that eluded you in life. RIP
James...I hope you found the peace in death that eluded you in life. RIP
When you grow up with no mom and dad, the deck is stacked so far against you. It sounds like his parents made poor choices early in life. His dad was locked up and it sounds like his mother was a selfish person who chose her lifestyle over being a quality mother.
Bad parenting, or in this case, absent parents, sent him on a negative path in this world. Football was his road out of that world. Giving a 21 yr old 1.4 million is usually a recipe for disaster, never mind the fact of his hard upbringing. They almost always have very needy people that cling to their coattails in hopes of a payday, too.
He was a great talent...I think he could've had a big time NFL career if he had landed in the right organization.
Bad parenting, or in this case, absent parents, sent him on a negative path in this world. Football was his road out of that world. Giving a 21 yr old 1.4 million is usually a recipe for disaster, never mind the fact of his hard upbringing. They almost always have very needy people that cling to their coattails in hopes of a payday, too.
He was a great talent...I think he could've had a big time NFL career if he had landed in the right organization.
All the supposed safety nets failed James. A very sad story which is unfortunately repeated daily in
our country.
A very sad story. But these stories don't always have tragic endings. I am reminded of the story of an athlete who was born to a 16-year old mother and who had no idea who the father was. The mother could not provide a stable home for him and the parents of one of his school friends offered to raise him for as long as necessary to give the mom a chance to get on her own feet. He was 8 or 9 at the time. Recently, he funded an elementary school for 240 at-risk 3rd and 4th graders and promised to pay their college tuition at the local university.
Still don't know? Here is a hint that should give it away. Laura Ingram said that he should just shut up and dribble.
Still don't know? Here is a hint that should give it away. Laura Ingram said that he should just shut up and dribble.
Stories like these also reveal the damage done when high school coaches and administrators, and even local fans, fail to hold star athletes accountable when they are young. These kids develop a sense of entitlement and learn to manipulate a system that values them more for their athletic ability than their well-being when their playing days end. They get by with doing inferior (or in some cases,no) classwork. They are not punished for breaking rules, they are kept eligible when they should be failed, they are given things they haven't earned simply because they are good at sports. It's an enormous disservice to these young people and leaves them unable to cope with the consequences of their actions down the road.
Kids can't pick their parents, but those people who choose to be surrogates for at-risk kids (coaches, etc) have a solemn obligation to do the right thing by these young people - even if it means losing. That is where too many coaches fail to walk the talk. In the end, the coach's record really means more to him than the long-term best interests of the star player.
A friend of a friend told me a story about writing an after-school detention for Jay Edwards when he was a first-year teacher at Marion H.S. Edwards was wandering the halls without a pass and became belligerent when the new teacher confronted him. He laughed at the teacher and tore the detention slip up in his face, telling him he "didn't do detention". The next day the teacher was called into the Principal's office where he was berated by Bill Green. Coach Green told him flatly that any and all discipline issues with basketball players were handled by him personally. Needless to say, Edwards didn't serve detention, and didn't miss a minute of game time.
One wonders if Hardy's adult success might have been improved (and Edwards as well) if they had been denied the thing they really cared about - playing time - when they failed to follow rules or behave appropriately as young players.
I don't want to speak ill of Terry Hoepner but I sometimes wondered about how much he held star players accountable. I taught with a guy who was on the football staff with Hep at Franklin College. He thought a great deal of TH and was excited for him when he got the IU job. But my friend openly wondered how he would do at IU with a different kind of student-athlete than he typically had at Miami. This guy commented that coach Hep's only issue as a young coach was that he wasn't much of a disciplinarian. He recalled him arguing against the suspension of a group of players at Franklin who had been caught drinking. By contrast, my teaching colleague was a well-known hard ass who fully supported the suspensions.
Later, when both Hardy and Kellen Lewis were suspended by Bill Lynch, former students of mine who were at IU at the time were not surprised to say the least. Both guys had reputations for being hard partiers and not paying a lot of attention to rules. I think BL had to deal with some of the fallout of his predecessor not opting for more tough love. I wondered as well if some of Ben Reothlisberger's questionable behavior with the Steelers might have been an issue as well during his college days. I don't necessarily think Hep didn't care or looked the other way because these guys were stars, but I think it might have been a case where he thought that football gave both some incentive to mature and become more responsible. Certainly, quitting the team would have been detrimental to Hardy and maybe Coach Hoepner thought he could best help him by being understanding and sympathetic. That's always a tough call for a coach.
My coaching mentor in my early years told me something that always stuck with me. He made it very clear that a coach's first responsibility was to "do the thing that would be most beneficial to the player when his playing days were over". He also made it clear that being willing to lose a game to teach a player a lesson was both the hardest thing and the most important thing a coach could do.
A good story but quite different in the context of unchecked mental illness.
Hep was the father figure that JH desolately needed. I don't think though that Hep quite grasped the mental illness issues with James.
I doubt too many people took a hard look at his potential mental issues. Perhaps with the best of intentions people enabled him in his pursuit to be a celebrity athlete. Becoming a male model is not much of a backup plan. Add drugs and depression to the end of a dream and it is a recipe for disaster. Not an uncommon story. Similar to the plight of too many child actors.
So incredibly sad. All around. He was a special kid with a special talent but couldn't overcome the damages he felt through his youth. Hep was just the next failure he had to experience. I get that he brought some of his legal failures upon himself but growing up that way does irreparable damage to your ability to cope and effectively guide your emotions. I'm glad we were able to give him that bright spot in his life. His last gift was to Jane, because hes probably back hanging out with coach Hep now. RIP James...
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
What the hell are schools supposed to do to stop the war in Gaza- Latest: BradStevens
-
-
-
-
