Negaunee head coach William Hill decided to remove one of his players from the team prior to the first game of the high school basketball season in Michigan. The student-athlete missed two practices to go hunting with his family.
As of this writing, he has not been reinstated.
Not only did the high school basketball coach make this decision, it was also approved by the athletic director. You have to practice if you want to play.
Negaunee High School basketball did not cut any players.
Negaunee High School is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You cannot go much further north. The city of Negaunee sits only 11 miles inland from Lake Superior, which effectively serves as the border between the United States and Canada. It is up there!
As a result of its remote location, Neguanee High School enrolls 450 students in Grades 9-12.
Only 12 students tried out for the boys varsity basketball team in total. Two of the students who tried out are injured and will not be cleared to play at all this season, so really just 10.
All 10 athletes were told on the second day of tryouts that there would not be any cuts. Head coach William ‘Billy’ Hill, who officially took over the varsity program in June, will have a full starting lineup and a full bench of five but no more.
The Miners began their season with a win at home on Dec. 12. Neguanee defeated Escanaba by a score of 54-35.
It did so without Gaven Stone, the son of Tiffany and Dan Stone. He was kicked off of the team before the season-opener. An exact timeline is unclear but the decision was made during the week of tryouts between Nov. 10-18.
The student missed practice to go hunting.
According to Tiffany Stone, “the new varsity basketball coach decided that Gaven going to deer camp with his family wasn’t a valid reason for missing 2 practices and kicked him off the team.” He was obviously disappointed.
Coach William Hill offered a better understanding of what happened from his perspective.
Stone walked up to the head basketball coach at Neguanee High School after the second day of tryouts, after he had already learned he was going to make the team, to let him know that he would not be at practice on that following Monday or Tuesday because he was going hunting. Coach Hill told him no.
He expected Stone to be at practice on Monday and Tuesday because the Miners only have 10 players.
“I then gave the player a choice,” Hill wrote. “I said if you don’t show up on Monday and Tuesday you did not make the team, as we have a scrimmage on Saturday, we only have 10 in uniform and the rest of the team is expected to be at practice. You also have the weekend and Thanksgiving week to hunt.”
The player told the coach that he would see if his dad would bring him in. It was Hill’s gut feeling that Stone was going to be at practice the next week as expected. Stone informed him on Friday that would not be the case and he did not show up. Neither Tiffany nor Dan reached out to him until that following Tuesday.
Coach Billy Hill stood by his decision.
Tiffany Stone does not dispute coach Hill’s account of what happened. It is mostly true.
“The point of the post was to say that Gaven was kicked off the team for missing 2 practices to go hunting. He was,” she wrote on Facebook. “Policy was not followed. There were no verbal or written expectations of attendance before Gaven talked to coach Hill about being gone for hunting.
We followed the chain of command. Gaven spoke to coach Hill twice, we texted with coach Hill, we reached out to the athletic director, we had a meeting with the athletic director and the superintendent. At any of these times the decision to kick him off the team could have been changed, but it wasn’t.”
Here is the text conversation between the Stone parents and coach Hill on that following Tuesday:
Coach Billy Hill stood firm in his decision. Athletic director Jake Skewis backed him up.
Stone was not reinstated.
Gaven is devastated by the decision and understandably so. However, he is not going to join the basketball team in progress, even if the administrators at Negaunee changes their mind.
“The magnitude that this has taken on is far beyond what we ever expected,” Tiffany Stone shared. “To the people who have reached out personally, thank you. The response has been overwhelming and we, as parents, have to make sure that the whole situation doesn’t become too overwhelming for our son. True to Gaven fashion, he has pivoted his focus to the next sport and although he will be there to cheer his teammates on, he won’t be playing basketball this year regardless of how this all plays out.”
A high school basketball player in Michigan was told not to skip practice. He was kicked off of the team for skipping practice.