*****Update from the News and Record(Joe Sirera) and also from Patrick Wright and WFMY NEWS 2 Sports:*****
GREENSBORO — N.C. A&T has suspended former Northwest Guilford standout Jalen Spicer from its basketball program “pending the resolution of charges stemming from an alleged incident on July 23,” coach Jay Joyner said in a one-sentence statement.
Not a good day or night for that matter when you read about news like this…Got home from the Grasshoppers’ baseball game last night and was scanning the web sites for the evening and came across this headline from Joe Sirera at the News and Record site/HSXtra at www.greensboro.com and read it and it said:
Former Northwest Guilford athlete Jalen Spicer facing felony charges
I could not get in to read the article/post because I had used up my monthly visits to the site and when you reach that point you can only view the headlines, unless you decide to become a subscriber…..Charlotte does the same thing, also High Point Enterprise and many other publications and that is the way they are choosing to do business and there is really nothing wrong with that, that is business…
But I knew by reading and seeing those headlines this was not going to be good news and it would not go away over night….Seems like every time we get in trouble or hit a bad stretch, we hope we will wake up in the morning and it will all be gone…Never goes that way, and as I hit the N&R site today, I saw that Jalen Spicer, aka ‘The Spice Man’, from Northwest Guilford High School was in trouble…
No way to sugarcoat it from here, Jalen was arrested on robbery and assault charges from an incident that happened near midnight back on July 25, at the Oak Ridge Commons Shopping Center, in Oak Ridge….Bad news, but I hope that Jalen can pull through this and still be able to enter and play basketball at N.C. A&T this Fall….
We all make mistakes and this is a big one and hate to even write about it, but when we cover the good, we have to write about and cover the bad events, involving our Guilford County kids too…..
I was just reading about a 12 year-old kid this morning who was arrested and jailed on murder charges for shooting and killing his stepfather and the kid was put in prison at age 12, but just got out of prison this past month for the way he was tried as an adult, at age 12….(Now 19 years of age and not from this area.)
Kids and adults do some crazy things and it happens every day and we all have to learn from our mistakes…..Hopefully this will be a one-time mess-up by “The Spice Man” and he won’t let it derail his basketball and academic career….Great kid with a super out-going personality, but he messed up and now he will have to face the charges and the consequences that go with them….
We wish him Good Luck as he works to get this turned around and get his life headed back in the right/correct direction….We are pulling for him, but Jalen Spicer will have to decide for himself that he wants to make this right, and get back in the right line of life….
CLICK HERE to read all on what happened from Joe Sirera at the News and Record…..
*****Back in the old days of school they taught us the principles of the “Three R’s”…..Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic….(Sort of hard to Remember how to spell Arithmetic these days)….*****
Today as adults we need to keep in mind these “Three R’s”, when we mess up, and these need to be put to good use to make things RIGHT…..
Remember:
Remorse…Got to show some form of forgiveness…..Show them you are sorry you messed up…
Restitution…You must pay people back what you took from them and pay back what you took away…
Redemption…You have to turn it around and change your course on life and get headed into the right direction and find time to help others and not just help yourself…..
+++++I have messed plenty of times myself and that is why I have pushed myself to learn the script, and work to follow it…..+++++
That’s crazy. I read the article and it looks like Demetrius Butler was arrested too. I believe he was a basketball player at Western?
I think you are right….I thought I recognized that name when I was reading the article/post and that the Butler kid was from Western Guilford….
The same applies to him as it does to Jalen….They have to get their act together and most importantly,
“They can’t let this incident Define their Life”…..
This can not be the norm and things will have to change for the positive or problems and trouble will follow you everywhere you go…..
I’m pretty sure that that is the Butler kid that played basketball for Western Guilford and he was a big part of the WG Hornets’ team….
Hopefully this is a matter that can be settled out of court and get the charges dropped. It sounds like this was a situation between a bunch of 18-19 yr old boys in the middle of the night. There use to be a saying “nothing good happens after midnight”. Spicer is clearly a good kid. I have spoken to him on the side many times and he deserves the opportunity to put this problem behind him. Hopefully Spicer and his family responded properly and hopefully the other family is willing to work together for a peacefully resolution. All of this being said – we are assuming that the charges are true and that Spicer and the other 2 kids were apart of something wrong. Short of killing, raping, or something on that level, kids should be giving a second chance if their history does not suggest a repeated pattern of bad behavior.
Since these guys are athletes they will get a second chance and then some. The jock sniffing hustlers around here over hype them anyway. What about the victim who got beat up and robbed? I say throw the book at them and put them under the jail.
Whether these kids were involved in sports or not has nothing to do with it. Kids at this age deserve another chance to correct mistakes. Why would you throw the book at any kid only 18 or 19 years old? If that were true, Donald Trump would have been there months (likely years) ago. If the two families can work out a settlement, this will hopefully be simply an eye opening situation for other kids walking the line. This kid does not have a pattern of poor behavior. Hopefully the DA can help find a middle ground for all parties.