Sports blotter: direct-to-NBA edition
By MATT TAIBBI | November 8, 2006
HOMETOWN HERO: Roxbury Native Travis George was extradited to Quincy after getting in a fight in Arizona. |
We know all about high-school-to-NBA athletes here in Boston; a full 87 percent of them are on the Celtics roster, devising new ways every week to bolster the popularity of the New England Patriots. But for every Al Jefferson, Sebastian Telfair, and Gerald Green — every success story about a kid that made it, that is — there’s another driving an unregistered car with a trunk full of machine-gun ammunition somewhere on a Florida Interstate. But we never hear about those kids — mainly because the NBA isn’t particularly interested in marketing the downside to the pipe dream that’s being pimped to teenagers at AAU tournaments and Nike Camps every summer.Take Keith Brumbaugh, for instance. Never heard of him? Well, you might have, if you were a NBA-draft junkie a few years back. Brumbaugh was one of a number of highly touted high-school players who declared for the 2005 draft, only to withdraw after finding limited interest in his services. The 6’9” star from central Florida’s Deland High suffered the same fate as players such as LaMarcus Aldridge, who thought about declaring for the same draft as Kendrick Perkins, only to have scouts tell him he’d be better off withdrawing and heading to the University of Texas. In Brumbaugh’s case, the sweet-shooting big man withdrew and enrolled in Tony Allen’s alma mater, Oklahoma State, only to be forced out of division-one ball when the NCAA challenged his suspiciously high test scores and made him retake the ACT, which he failed. This was after Brumbaugh had already been charged with shoplifting some $40 worth of junk from an Oklahoma Wal-Mart.
After dropping out, Brumbaugh returned to Florida, where he was advised to enroll in a local junior college. He apparently agreed to do so, and was on track once again to steam toward the 2007 draft — until he was pulled over last May by police for having expired tags. Instead of copping to the car tags, Brumbaugh panicked and fled the scene in shirtless-on-COPS fashion, athletically leaping a chain-link fence. Cops later found a Bushmaster automatic rifle in the trunk with 56 rounds in the magazine. The athlete was arrested for a felony — fleeing without violence — and a few other charges, but after a serendipitous court hearing, he was on course yet again to head back to school and have his record cleared six months later.
That was until a few weeks back, when Brumbaugh was caught sitting in his car in a campus parking lot with the music blaring, stoned out of his gourd. He was charged with possession of marijuana and his court situation is now totally screwed for the foreseeable future. Cross off another potential savior for the hometown heroes.
Not even close to through the fire
Then there was this juicy local tidbit from the world of once-promising NBA prospects: 6’8” Travis George, once one of the top high-school-basketball talents in New England, was extradited back to Quincy this week to face child-rape charges after cops found him playing basketball for Eastern Arizona College.
Related:
Texas trouble, What's the scam?, Because the world is flat … or something, More 
- Texas trouble
Some college-football positions just seem to be cursed, arrest-wise.
- What's the scam?
Back on the morning of June 7, 1982, a man walked into the New York branch of the Middle East Bank on the 25th floor of a Madison Avenue office building and tried to deposit a $2 million check. The man, a native of the United Arab Emirates, left without completing the transaction.
- Because the world is flat … or something
United Nations Human Rights Council debuts, sucks.
- The trials of Bernard Baran
This story originally appeared in the June 18, 2004 issue of the Boston Phoenix .
- The media’s worst nightmare?
Many of those familiar with his work tend to see him as the real deal — a passionate, sincere, and surprisingly idealistic advocate who is no fun to face across the aisle.
- Rhode Island’s billion-dollar man
Jack McConnell grew up in modest circumstances.
- On Sotomayor
There is a pleasing symmetry to President Obama's nomination of federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court.
- Sotomayor's mixed message on free speech
Minutes after President Barack Obama announced that he was nominating appellate judge Sonia Sotomayor for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, battle lines were drawn on the pre-scripted questions of "post-racial" America.
- $50 million worth of mistakes
Mistakes by Boston city workers — especially the police — have cost the city more than $50 million over the past four years. The breakdown: Inside the "Oops" fund. By David S. Bernstein Among the uninsured: How other cities handle their mistakes. By David S. Bernstein
- Framed?
The Boston Phoenix has uncovered substantial new information about the Cowans case.
- The overtime game
The problems haunting the Boston Police Department’s homicide unit — low arrest rates, cases rejected by juries, and exonerations of wrongfully convicted men — did not occur in a vacuum.
- Less
Topics:
Sports
, Sports, National Football League, Kendrick Perkins, More
, Sports, National Football League, Kendrick Perkins, AFC East Division, American Football Conference, New England Patriots, Football, Professional Football, Trials, Basketball, Less
