The sad, sick saga of Howard Avery
One of the first stories I wrote as the prep-sports editor for the late, lamented Oregon Journal was about Howard Avery. He’d been a sensation at Benson High School but then kind of just disappeared for a couple of years.
He surfaced as a senior at McLaren (a place where you don’t want to go, you HAVE to go), where he led the team to a small-school state championship almost single-handedly. What landed him in McLaren I never knew, but that season was my first real brush with him.
Howard would bounce in and out of my life over the years and I was happy for him when I first learned he was making it as a personal coach for young basketball players. And I mean turning it into a thriving business. There is a lot of money in personal coaching these days, as parents look for any edge in helping their little darlings become better athletes than the kid next door.
I understand Howard, at one time, was making a lot of money, not only from parents, but from shady college coaches who would pay him for directing prep players their way by giving him big bucks to appear at their summer camps. (And you wonder why I’m not a huge college basketball fan).
The rumor was, college coaches would recruit Avery’s players and not even bother talking to their high-school coaches. They’d go straight to Howard because of the influence he had over his young athletes. And then later throw a few thousand bucks his way for showing up and doing a short clinic at their summer camp. Cozy arrangement, huh?
The thing about Avery, he knows his stuff. I’ve had an NBA coach tell me he’s terrific working with guards. From the lowest levels possible all the way to the NBA, players still sing his praises as a developer of skills. But over time, the rumors also surfaced about what he was doing behind the scenes. He would later admit to sexual relations with underage girls he coached.
At this point, Howard’s pattern of behavior is clear and predictable. It’s time to put him away for a long time. But I swear, the hardest part about understanding any of this is trying to figure out how, these days, a parent could ever, EVER allow his or her daughter to be anyplace alone with Howard Avery. EVER.
There is NO excuse. You’re saying you’ve never heard of him and didn’t know about his past? Sorry, just ask around. And if you can’t find out anything, don’t turn your daughter over to him. If you have heard about him and still allowed him to coach your underage daughter, well, that’s pretty sick.
College basketball, High-school sports | Dwight Jaynes | February 24, 2009
Thank you for providing more background to this man’s horrible story. I read a more national website (sports by brooks) that labeled Avery “the most horible man on earth”, or something like that. Keep screaming Dwight. … I’ve been around a litttle on this planet…There’s probably another one out there…probably operating right now….Avery ain’t the first or the last
Exactly right. I couldn’t imagine sending my daughter to work with him. It’s insane to trust him. He’s admitted previous abuse. Crazy.
I remember reading about him a few years ago, I thought they chased him out of the gym. Guess not.
Just to fill in the blanks, it was auto theft that subtracted those three years in high school.