Robert Whaley sat in room 315 of the Berrien County (Mich.) Court House and watched two lawyers debate his actions, pick apart his mental health and argue over his future. He watched 12 jurors take it all in and hold his life in their hands. He listened to doctors and cops analyze every facet of his life.
It was June of 2001 and Whaley was facing 15 years in prison for criminal sexual conduct with a 13-year-old girl; a friend of his youngest sister claimed Whaley raped her on Thanksgiving eve 2000 in the small Benton Harbor, Mich., trailer home his family lived in.
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| Robert Whaley has come a long way from his days in the court house. (Herald-Palladium) |
But when the jury room closed and his fate hung in the balance -- hoop stardom or prison -- it hit harder than a cannon ball to the stomach.
"That feeling is a feeling I can't really explain," Whaley said. "I sat there and watched two (lawyers) bounce with my life, play with my life like it was some kind of joke."
After three long days of deliberation the jury was deadlocked. Six people thought Whaley did it, six didn't. The case was declared a mistrial. The prosecutor's office decided not to retry.
Whaley was free ... free to again pursue a basketball career with so much potential. Whether that potential would ever be reached -- whether he was destined to return to court someday -- remained in doubt as long as Robert Whaley kept acting like Robert Whaley (substance abuse, attitude problems, academic trouble).
That was 16 months ago and the story of Robert Whaley picks up far from Benton Harbor and its chronic unemployment and rampant poverty.
Whaley calls little Great Bend, Kan., and Barton County Community College home now, a place he fled to after the trial to put his life and game back together.
After Missouri rescinded its scholarship offer and his senior season was wiped out, he needed this -- a place with few distractions but plenty of time to reassess priorities.
As best as it can be judged, he has succeeded on both accounts.
Last season, the 6-foot-9 forward was named first team NJCAA All-American, averaging 19 points and seven rebounds a game for his 22-10 team. He was recently named NJCAA preseason player of the year. Maybe most important, he hasn't gotten in any trouble since he enrolled at Barton.
"This was the best thing for me," Whaley said. "I needed time like this to work on my game, work on my character. The best thing for me was to get away from Benton Harbor. I needed to get a new life, start new."
Last week, Whaley orally committed to Cincinnati, choosing the Bearcats over Oklahoma, Iowa State and Florida State. It was a decision that was both a statement about the future and a realization of the past. Whaley still has new levels to reach, but he is a long way from that Western Michigan courthouse.
New attitude
"He's really a fun kid to be around," said Ryan Wolf, the fourth-year coach at Barton and a former player at Minnesota. "He's done really well here. You heard the stories, but that isn't his reality here. He really is a hell of a kid to be around."
This isn't to say coach and player haven't butted heads. But Wolf is a hard-headed disciplinarian who specializes in being tougher than the toughest kid that shows up on his patch of Kansas Plains.
With each test of wills, however, Whaley grew, the coach said. With each challenge laid before him, he has learned to focus.
You never really know if someone has changed, just as you never really know what a person is truly about in the first place. But Wolf swears by his player and his player swears everything is different.
"The trial taught me so much," Whaley said. "It's strange to say, but I'm glad I went through something like that. I learned a lot from it. People who've got problems need to go through episodes like that. It's what it takes to wake up."
There is no debate Whaley needed to wake up. He lived in a world without discipline, where he was the biggest star of a tiny town, where there were no rules, no expectations, no accountability for his actions.
Even before the trial, he had a lengthy juvenile record, a history of truancy from school and a series of run-ins with police.
Whaley admitted in court that on the night in question, he had spent the previous hours partying with three girls in his small bedroom, drinking and smoking marijuana. He later drove them home despite being drunk, then stopped by another girlfriend's house before coming home, where his sister and friend were up late watching television. His mother was in the trailer the entire time.
Whaley said it was just your average night in his out-of-control life.
And in many ways it was just your average story in Benton Harbor, a downtrodden 36,000-person city on Lake Michigan. At the time the city's unemployment rate was 20 percent, 51 percent of its children lived below the poverty line, and Whaley attended a high school with a 36.5 percent dropout rate and 13.2 percent teen pregnancy rate.
And Whaley lived in a broken home in the poor section.
Which is why he now avoids Benton Harbor even though he remains close to his mother, and his girlfriend, Tequela Blackwell, still lives there. Last year, instead of returning home for Christmas, he stayed in Great Bend and celebrated with the Wolfs. He didn't go back this summer and has no immediate plans to return.
"I mean, I've changed a bunch since then, a whole bunch," he said.
Said Wolf, "He thinks he has the maturity now to go back, but he knows the best thing is to stay out of that place. His mom doesn't want him back there either."
Whaley says he doesn't drink any more. He says he doesn't stay out late any more. He says he spends his time working out, studying and talking to his girlfriend on the phone.
His best friend at Barton has turned out to be Nouha Diakite a 6-10 Frenchman headed to Louisville, who doesn't speak much English and considers shooting free throws a good way to pass a Saturday night. That's not the type of guy Whaley used to hang with.
"We talk about not putting yourself in bad positions," Wolf said. "Nothing good happens after midnight, that type of stuff. He's listened."
Whaley said the trial made him realize all of those things.
"I know nothing can hurt me but me and the decisions I make," he said. "Every decision I make now is a good one."
Being a Bearcat
That would include, presumably, his choice for college. Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins is known for his hard-driving coaching style, his demanding personality and his program's ability to maximize individual talent.
Playing at Cincinnati is about being up to the challenge, being man enough to handle the rigorous weight training that is designed to lower body fat, increase strength and improve quickness. It is about being mentally tough enough to deal with Huggins day in, day out in practice.
It isn't for the lazy, the uncommitted, the faint of heart ... three things that used to describe Whaley.
"When I visited, the players there told me how hard they work," Whaley said. "They work really, really hard. Real hard. But that's what I need. I kind of like that. Coach Huggins will work the hell out of me and that's good."
Wolf thinks it is telling not just that Whaley picked Cincinnati, but his other finalists all include no nonsense, tough coaches such as Kelvin Sampson, Larry Eustachy and Leonard Hamilton.
"When he got here, he probably didn't want anything to do with those kinds of guys," Wolf said. "Now he knows he's got to prove himself."
Whaley said it was his half-sister, Quacy Barnes, a WNBA veteran and former Indiana star, who pushed him over the top for UC.
"She was a big factor, she's in the pros, so she obviously knows what she is doing," Whaley said. "She said without a doubt Cincinnati is the school I should go to. She said they turn out pros and make you work and that is exactly what you want and need."
Huggins is prohibited from speaking about Whaley until he signs a binding national letter of intent in November. But the Bearcats coach and his staff, particularly assistant Andy Kennedy, did a lot of talking during the recruitment.
Wolf said the Oklahoma staff was similar, talking to him and others at Barton about Whaley's character, traveling to Benton Harbor to meet with family and others, pouring through court records.
Whaley is aware these programs were gambling on him, betting he isn't a felon who got away with it, but a 20-year-old fit for campus life. He says he won't let Huggins down.
"Coach Huggins got to know me," Whaley said. "I think he understands me. People that get to know me -- and don't just make assumptions about me, but who get to know me a bit better -- they know I'm not what people think. They know that is in the past."
What is in Whaley's future is intriguing.
Wolf says his game has made significant strides since the end of his high school career, when he was often criticized for being lazy and out of shape. As a high school sophomore, he was a spectacular talent and was rated above current NBA players such as Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry. But scouts soured on him as a senior.
"The best thing for him was to get out of Benton Harbor where everyone was telling him how great he was while he sat on the couch and got fatter every day," Wolf said. "His potential is unlimited because he's so skilled. Now he has to take it to the next level, control his weight and not just work hard, but really push himself to the next level."
Whaley says he is working on that and will continue to. There remains the chance he can play his way into the top 10 of next June's NBA Draft, although that won't be easy.
Junior college prospects haven't panned out in recent drafts, and scouts say they are less likely to grab unproven JC stars. If he is in the top 10, Whaley said Huggins wants him to go pro. If not, he'll enroll at UC.
"He said he'd give me a hug and tell me to go," Whaley said. "But right now I really want to go to college, I'm really focused on college."
Sixteen months removed from nearly having control of his future wrested away, Robert Whaley says he is a changed man, realizes what he almost lost and has made the most of his life at a junior college in a small town in Kansas.
He says he can't stop thinking about the future.
"I'm so determined now," he said. "There is no stopping me. Nothing."
