BAY MILLS - After Ojibwe Charter School Eagles basketball coach John Paul Lufkins glanced through the list of names that made the school's honor roll earlier this year for their good grades, he was forced to do a doubletake. After reading through the list of names a second time he grew quite perplexed. What Lufkins discovered was that the names of the players on his team were nowhere to be found on that list. So, like any good coach, instead of berating them at their next practice for not being on the list, Lufkins opted to challenge them. His challenge - to pick up their grades and make the honor roll. And as an added bonus, and for extra incentive, he promised to take those who made the honor roll to a Detroit Pistons home game.
"Not one of them were on the honor roll," Lufkins said. "I couldn't believe it. I wanted to see someone from our team make the honor roll, so I challenged them to get better grades. Grades and basketball go hand-in-hand. If you want to play basketball you've got to have good grades."
The students readily accepted Lufkins' challenge and when the next marking period was complete he found the names of two of his players on the honor roll - Todd Carrick and Cole Tadgerson. It seemed the other players had responded to his challenge as well, after a few came close to making the list.
On Sunday, March 27, Lufkins delivered on his promise and took the students, along with Assistant Coach Arlen Kuzmik and his cousin Jeffrey Parish, to a Pistons game at the Palace of Auburn Hills, where they hosted the New Jersey Nets. Chris Bjork, who was one of the players who narrowly missed making the honor roll, took the place of Todd Carrick, who was unable to attend the game.
After the game was over, a game that the Pistons lost by a score of 79 to 74, Lufkins went down and spoke with the Detroit Automotion Dance Team. The dancers gave the students signed pictures and posters to take home with them. Since Lufkins' had visiting team passes, he was unable to get the kids in the back to meet any of the NBA stars. He did speak with Nets All-Star point guard Jason Kidd in the corral area outside of the locker-room and told him he had some kids that wanted to meet him. Lufkins said Kidd was looking forward to meeting the students, but the head of security would not allow the students back. Since Kidd, along with fellow Nets All-Star Vince Carter, had to catch their departing bus, they were unable to wait around and meet the students. However, before he left, Carter did take Bjork's authentic Vince Carter Nets jersey with him, which he promised to autograph and send back to him in the mail.
Even though the students failed to meet any of their favorite Pistons players, they didn't miss out on the NBA experience completely. While they were downstate attending the game they got to spend two nights in the home of Nets forward, and Lufkins' brother-in-law, Clifford Robinson. Lufkins said the kids were awe-stricken by Robinson's collection of luxury cars he had stashed in his garage, which included a Ferrari and a Shelby Mustang GT500E "Eleanor."
While attending a Pistons game was nothing new for Lufkins, he said it was a new and exciting experience for the students. Even though he came through on his promise to take them to a Pistons game, Lufkins said it would not have been nearly as exciting if his sister Heather hadn't gotten them such good seats (center-court, ninth row) and gave them a place to stay, or if the Pistons Equipment Manager Ryan Nyeholt hadn't hooked them up with all of their passes at the game.
Now that they're home and the OCS basketball season is still months away, Lufkins said his only hope now is that his players go and tell all of their friends what a great time they had. And maybe, just maybe, he'll see some more of his players names on that list come this time next year.
"The kids were tickled pink," he said. "They were geeked. Arlen's (Kuzmik) eyes were pretty big, too. Hopefully, they'll tell all of their friends and their stories will inspire some other kids to get on the honor roll next year."
