A Second Chance for Muir Basketball Player Deshawn Hayes

Deshawn Hayes never thought it would come to this. All those warnings and benchings after the missed practices. They were just talk. Empty threats designed to scare him straight. Nothing more, nothing less.

After all, he was Deshawn Hayes. The star senior guard on the Muir boys basketball team. The player with the rim-rattling dunks and the streaky yet effective jumper. The Mustangs would only go as far as he carried them … they couldn’t possibly afford to lose him.

Or so Hayes thought.

All it took was one final tardy to an afternoon practice in February, and Muir coach Dr. Gamal Smalley decided he had enough. After discussing his options with his players, staff and school administrators, Smalley dismissed Hayes from the Mustangs program for violating team rules on Feb. 8.

Basketball consequences be damned, it was time Hayes got his wake up call.

And boy did he ever. While watching the Mustangs mount a run to the CIF-Southern Section Division 5AA championship game without him, Hayes reached out to Smalley for help in achieving his goal of playing college ball – in his mind, his only ticket out of Altadena. So Smalley helped him get all of his paper work (transcripts, financial aid forms, etc.) in order and engineered a workout for Hayes and teammate Justin Knowles at Muir in front of Curtis Norwood, head coach at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Wash.

Norwood liked what he saw from both Hayes and Knowles, and the Muir duo are slated to attend and play ball at South Puget Sound next fall.

For Hayes the opportunity at South Puget Sound marks a second chance at pursuing a scholarship to a Division I program, and a change to prove he’s learned his lessons from the mistakes that ruined his senior season.

“It was pretty tough,” Hayes said of the past couple of months. “The first couple of days, I was mad at Coach Smalley. But I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked at myself, and told myself that it was my fault that I did it. I should be mad at myself, and not him for what I did.”

In explaining why he failed to show up in time for practice on multiple occasions, Hayes said he was just being lazy and in his words “a knucklehead.” It didn’t matter that his friends kept imploring him to get his act together. Hayes assumed his stance on the team was never in jeopardy.

“I never thought that because he always gave me second chances,” Hayes said. “So I was thinking if I did it again, he wouldn’t do anything. But he was a man of his word.” 

Smalley said he knew of the potential ramifications of his decision to kick Hayes off the team. The senior had garnered interest from Cleveland State University, and such a move surely would dash any future offer.

“Very difficult decision,” Smalley said. “You don’t make a decision like that hastily. You take every step that you can to make sure that you’re giving the student athlete the best guidance possible.”

The next couple of days for Hayes were a haze. He felt like he was caught in a bad dream from which he couldn’t wake up. There were the constant questions from peers as to why he was no longer on the team. The whispers in the crowd during games. And the nagging fears that he had blown his chance to cash in on his immense talent. The equivalent of crumpling up a winning lottery ticket and tossing it in a trash can.

“That’s like the only chance I got,” Hayes said. “I loved playing basketball all my life. I think basketball can really take me far. Other than being here out here all my life, and not doing nothing and being on the streets.”

So Hayes gradually attempted to make amends with Smalley in an effort to salvage his future.

“He was gracious enough to still come back and befriend his coach, and work with his coach. After all of this, to me that’s the biggest win,” Smalley said. “Now he can grow from that experience.”

Smalley had been in contact with Norwood since early in the season. Norwood, who lived in Pasadena and Altadena during the 1980s, said he liked how Hayes and Knowles represented themselves on the phone, and he came down to Muir to see the duo in person.

And in meeting Hayes, Norwood said he found a contrite player who was honest about the mistakes he made.

“I liked the way that he was trying to grow from that,” Norwood said. “Where he wouldn’t make that mistake again. You talk about the juco level, you’re talking about players with good athletic ability. You’re talking about second chances. You’re always talking about second chances.” 

And that’s what this story is about: second chances. Hayes isn’t the first athlete who needed a shock to the system to get back on the right track, and he won’t be the last. The world of junior college basketball is chalk full of reclamation projects featuring players who committed far worse offenses than Hayes.

“I really think the sky is the limit,” Norwood said. “The key is taking care of the academics as well as the athletics. … He’ll definitely play at the next level whether a small D1 or a large D1.”

It’s now up to Hayes to see if he can make the most of this opportunity. Right now, it seems like he’s up to the challenge.

“These next two years could determine basically my life,” Hayes said. “If I go out there and do the right things, and step up my grades, have a good season, I think it will take me to another level – to the D1 level. And then from there on, deciding what I want to do with my life.”