Editor’s note: Although I have never initiated contact with any high school player or coach, occasionally they contact me. Jamaal Tate’s high school coach was one such coach. He didn’t say much more than how excited Jamaal was to be headed to Penn State and what a good man everyone involved – family, coaches, Jamaal – thought that Jerry Dunn was.
When things don’t work out for a player, I think of those days when everything seems possible and the player and his family and friends think he is on the fast track to something big ….
By David Jones
Of The Patriot-News
Jamaal Tate loves basketball. He showed how much by returning to the game this season after overcoming a yearlong bout with alcoholism.
But he loves his life of sobriety more. And he wants to keep a firm grip on it.
Tate has decided to quit the Penn State basketball team for good to make certain his recovery is permanent and his graduation is imminent, according to PSU coach Ed DeChellis. The coach said Tate met with him and PSU team physicians Friday and informed him of his decision.
DeChellis stopped short of saying Tate feared a relapse of the alcohol binges that knocked him off the squad and almost out of school in 2002. He did say Tate felt too consumed by the rigors of athletics and academics while still performing the daily affirmations necessary to keep his alcoholism in check.
DeChellis related Friday’s meeting when contacted yesterday:
“He said to me, ‘Coach, I don’t think I can do it anymore.’ He wants to make certain he’s going to his A-A meetings and wants to make sure he takes care of his academics.