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UMKC player’s scholarship lost in translation
By JOE POSNANSKIThe Kansas City Star
So, let me ask a different question.
“Hello,” the voice on the message said, “My name is Jakub Jurczak. I’m in a bad situation. I don’t know if you can help me but I don’t know where else to go.”
The question: What exactly do colleges owe their players anyway?
•••
Jakub Jurczak is 21 years old, he’s 6 feet 10, and he wishes I could speak a little Polish so he could explain himself better. After three years in America, in Kansas City, his English is pretty strong, but there are still times when he loses words.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “What is this word, this word for when people live together in a … when … together …”
“Community?” I ask.
“Yes,” he said. “I like to be part of the community.”
Jakub grew up in Krosno, a remote town in southern Poland, near Slovakia and the Ukraine. He grew quickly — he started to play basketball when he was 11. Basketball is still a blossoming sport in Poland; but by the time he was 16, he was tall and he could shoot pretty well, and he was recruited to the national basketball high school near Warsaw. Basketball was the focus there. He played for a couple of youth national teams. He traveled around Europe. When he graduated, he was offered a few bucks to play professional basketball in Poland.
He was also offered a few college opportunities in the United States. Nothing big. North Carolina and Memphis did not come after him. But it’s easy to forget that the heart of Division I college basketball isn’t North Carolina and Memphis. Those are the million-dollar houses on the hill. The heart is the University of Idaho and Butler and Pepperdine and schools like that. The heart is UMKC, too.
“We will take good care of your son,” UMKC coach Rich Zvosec told Piotr Jurczak, a doctor in Krosno. Well, anyway, that’s what Piotr and Jakub heard — neither of them spoke English well enough to really understand. But Zvosec had come all the way to Poland, and he saw Jakub play basketball, and that seemed enough.
“You should go,” Piotr told his son. There were chances to play basketball in Poland and chances to study in Poland, but not both. America offered both. At the airport, Jakub hugged his family, and he traveled 5,000 miles to America to play basketball for UMKC.
•••
Jakub reaches into his folder stuffed with e-mails and letters home and notes he has written to remember. He pulls out three sheets of paper stapled together. The first sheet is a letter written to him. It is a non-renewal form. It is to let Jakub know that his athletic scholarship is being taken away for his senior year.
“I always try,” he says. “I never missed practice. I was never late for practice. I never was selfish, I don’t think. I put the team ahead of me. They tell me they take away my scholarship, and I’m in shock. I don’t even know what to think.”
Jakub realizes that he is only offering one side of the story. But this is his side, the side he knows in his heart to be true. He came across the world, he struggled in his new country, he learned how to speak English, he studied for his classes, he worked hard on the basketball court — he gave everything he had — and they took away his scholarship. He cannot help but see it this way.
“I know they might not see it like this,” he says. He knows that his coaches were disappointed (“Maybe they expect Michael Jordan,” he says with a sad smile on his face). He remembers asking to be redshirted his freshman year while he was trying to learn English and find his way. Coach Zvosec, though, told Jakub he could play right away. Jakub did not play much. He played 22 minutes his freshman year. He played in five games his sophomore year.
It just wasn’t working. Coach Zvosec suggested a transfer. Then coach Zvosec was fired. Matt Brown came in, and the first words Jakub remembers hearing from coach Brown were: “I did not recruit you.” But, again, that’s just one side of the story.
What we do know is that coach Brown offered Jakub one year on scholarship and then they would see where it led. Jakub thought this meant that he would be given a new start and a new chance. Jakub admits something may have been lost in translation. He hardly played and averaged 0.4 points per game.
When the season ended, coach Brown met with Jakub and said, “You have not lived up to my expectations.” This is a legal phrase, precisely the words that are used in the scholarship non-renewal form. Jakub then says coach Brown mentioned what could be viewed as an extremely minor team violation — Jakub had apparently forgotten to call his mentor three or four times before games — and said that his scholarship would not be renewed.
“I told you that it was only for one year,” coach Brown wrote to Jakub in an e-mail when the season ended. Coach Brown ended the e-mail with a favorite phrase: “GOD BLESS.” And Jakub felt lost and very alone.
•••
Of course, the people at UMKC see this whole thing differently. Tim Hall, the UMKC athletic director, won’t talk about Jakub’s specific violations because, “We want to protect Jakub. … All I can tell you is that there were some team violations.”
Hall says that UMKC went above and beyond when the school renewed Jakub’s scholarship for his junior year. He says a lot of schools would not have renewed.
“We did not have to do that,” he says. “But when I took over, I said we would honor every scholarship for that year because it was the right thing to do.”
And he says that coach Brown worked hard to help Jakub transfer to another school. It looked like Jakub might land at Rockhurst, but there were some issues with transferring credits — Jakub would have needed two years to finish at Rockhurst but would only have gotten one scholarship year. Then, they tried to get him to transfer to Avila, but that had all sorts of complications too.
“I just want to finish my education,” Jakub says. He pleaded with the school to give him a chance to attend UMKC his senior year. He did not have to play basketball. He could be a manager. He offered to take any job around campus. Something. Anything.
“I love basketball,” he says. “But the reason I am here is to get my education and my degree. I have no money. If I go back to Poland, I have to start all over.”
At some point, Piotr wrote a letter to the school — it was translated into halted English by Jakub’s sister. Piotr wrote that he felt responsible for his son’s destiny. He had told his son to come to America. He felt sure that the school had promised his son four years and a college degree. He did not understand what had gone wrong in basketball, but he said that was the coach’s decision. He just wanted his son to have a chance to go to school.
Jakub got more e-mails from Hall and coach Brown. Both used the phrase, “More than fair.” The point was simple. There was no more scholarship money. There was no job. Jakub could transfer to Avila and try to make that work or he could lose his scholarship. There was no other option.
•••
What exactly do colleges owe college basketball players anyway? Coaches, players, administrators, fans — people have wildly different feelings about this. My feeling is that when a school goes into a player’s home and promises parents that their son or daughter will have a great college experience and will leave with a diploma — that’s exactly what they must offer. To me, that’s a bond. And unless the student breaks it — consistently crosses teams rules, flunks out of school, gets in trouble with the law — the school should live up to the bond.
UMKC even has a clause like that in their bylaws. There is a paragraph that reads: “It is unlikely that UMKC will reduce or not renew a scholarship for a student athlete who has done everything required and is just not performing athletically up to the coach’s expectations.” The key word there is “Unlikely.” That’s a pretty vague word.
Anyway, many other people disagree with the bond idea. After all, a great player doesn’t have to live up to the bond. He can jump to the NBA at any point after his freshman year. So, this argument goes, if a player is not as good as the coach expects (or if he is left over from a previous coach) then the school should have the right to move on, too.
It’s an open question.
“I think in the end, it has to be a case-by-case basis,” Hall says. “Generally I agree with you — I would like to see scholarships fulfilled. But I think there are exceptions.”
•••
After he tells the whole story, Jakub pulls out one more e-mail. It is from Tim Hall and it just arrived that day. The e-mail promises a new offer.
“What do you think this means?” Jakub asks.
Thursday, they meet, and the new offer is made. UMKC will honor Jakub Jurczak’s scholarship. He’s off the basketball team, but he will be given jobs around campus. And he will get his senior year. Jakub will get his chance to finish school. When the meeting ends, according to Jakub, coach Brown walks over to him and says rather bluntly, “You handled this poorly but I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.”
Jakub is not sure of what he’s being forgiven, but he’s happy that he will get to finish school. This is an emotional story, and people disagree about what’s right. But in the end, it turns out, that Tim Hall thought hard about Jakub’s situation. He says, “I started to think, ‘How would I handle this if it was my own son or daughter?’ ”
It’s not a bad thought.