AAU Coach Says HS Basketball Star's Guardian Looked to Make Money Off Prospects

In what appears to be a bombshell development in the strange saga of Skal Labissiere’s recruitment, an AAU coach has come forward with damning comments regarding the Haitian refugee’s legal guardian, Gerald Hamilton. 

CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish published a story Wednesday that explores Labissiere’s recruitment and the seemingly shady dealings Hamilton has dabbled in while shopping the talented 6’10” high school senior to college basketball programs.

The key figure in Parrish’s story is former AAU coach Keith Easterwood, who alleges that Hamilton once came to him asking for advice on how to profit off a high school basketball player. 

Easterwood, a longtime navigator of the sometimes virtuous, many-times seedy world of high school prospect brokering, says he met Hamilton 10 years ago. 

“Gerald never talked about trying to help kids back then,” Easterwood said. “He only talked about bringing basketball players to the United States from Haiti or somewhere else.” 

After writing Hamilton off as another two-bit hustler, Easterwood says he received a phone call out of the blue two years ago. This time, Easterwood says, Hamilton came right out with it. 

“It was Gerald Hamilton. He wanted to talk, and one of the things he asked me was, ‘How can I make money off of a basketball player?’” 

The damning evidence continues to pile up against Hamilton, who may have prompted Labissiere’s commitment to the Reach Your Dream Preparatory Academy—a high school that only existed as a pin on Google Maps. 

Labissiere, a 5-star recruit with offers from Kentucky, Georgetown, North Carolina and Tennessee, among others, announced his plans to play for the phantom school in late October:

The commitment elicited skepticism from sports pundits, who mused that Hamilton whipped up this imaginary high school as a way of circumventing an ineligibility ruling levied by a local high school sports governing body.

Rivals.com's Eric Bossi tweeted that he believes the commitment was an attempt to maintain Labissiere's eligibility for McDonald's All-American honors:

Parrish reports that Hamilton also made it known to interested college coaches that a donation to the Reach Your Dream foundation—his tax-exempt nonprofit—would go far in helping their recruitment of Labissiere: 

"

Multiple coaches who have recruited Labissiere told CBSSports.com Hamilton either directly indicated or strongly suggested pursuing Labissiere would mostly be a waste of time if they couldn't offer assistance in helping fund his foundation. One coach from a prominent staff said: ‘We couldn't even get in the door.’ Another added: ‘We recognized what it was about early on and decided not to get involved.’

"

It gets worse.

Adding to the red flags surrounding the young Haitian’s recruitment is the fact that Labissiere has played for three different summer teams and attended two high schools since coming into Hamilton’s guardianship. Hamilton’s decision to shift his star player from Evangelical Christian School in Memphis to Lausanne Collegiate School (also in Memphis) caused the aforementioned ineligibility ruling. 

“Gerald’s been shopping Skal since after his first year at ECS,” a source told Parrish.

So, in short, Hamilton ostensibly derailed his own gravy train by moving Labissiere.

The last and perhaps the biggest smoking gun in Parrish’s report is Hamilton’s alleged mishandling of Samuel Jean-Gilles—another young Haitian prospect under Hamilton’s care. 

Parrish cites an article by Michael Cohen of The Commercial Appeal (subscription required). Cohen interviewed Jean-Gilles, who lived with Labissiere until he was shipped off to Boston. 

“They [were] guardians for me and they don’t want me anymore,” Jean-Gilles told Cohen. “So I guess he did what he had to do…if I was 6’9,” yes, it would have been different. I would have been [a Division I athlete] and he most definitely wouldn’t [have sent] me to Boston.”

Hamilton told Cohen he sent Jean-Gilles away because he was a “bad influence” on Labissiere. He put Jean-Gilles on a 29-hour bus ride to Boston. It left in the middle of the night. 

Parrish wraps up his report by writing that the NCAA is investigating Labissiere’s recruitment. He reports that Hamilton is gauging interest overseas and Labissiere could play one year in Europe before returning for the 2016 NBA draft.

ESPN’s Jeff Goodman confirms that the NCAA is already collecting information on Labissiere’s recruitment:

As it stands, Labissiere’s story could turn out to be one of the more instructive and damning tales about the exploitation of disadvantaged refugees in American high school athletics. A talented kid with hoop dreams finds himself unwittingly playing the cash cow for a manipulative greed-head, as it were.

If true, Hamilton's mishandling of Labissiere and Jean-Gilles marks a dark bruise on the import-export practice in big-time high school athletics—a murky cottage industry where genuine philanthropy and self interested service become difficult to differentiate. Some talent developers mean well, others are talent funnels collecting cash on the side. Some athletes get a better life and scholarship.

Others take the long bus to Boston.

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