Coach Jelani Gardner, Passionate and Controversial, Assumes Command of La Salle’s Basketball Program



La Salle High School's incoming Basketball Coach Jelani Gardner.

Jelani Gardner looks poised to bring new ideas, a fresh training regime and a lot of passion to his role as incoming basketball coach at La Salle High School.

A former California State Player of the Year and number one-ranked point-guard at high school level, he also has twelve years’ of professional playing experience in Europe in the UK, Greece, Russia, Cyprus and France.

Gardner’s first innovation as coach at La Salle has been to implement a La Salle Varsity Summer League that he plans will run from mid-June to mid-July with eight teams to play on Mondays and Wednesdays.

“We’re actually looking for one or two more teams, we got a late start because I got the job a little late, but we’re doing the best we can to just upgrade the basketball program as a whole,” he said in an interview last week. ”These are other high school teams. All the games will be held on our home court and open to the public.”

Gardner’s career has not been without controversy – which he readily acknowledges and says he wants to address.

Garner’s UC Coach was forced to resign after he admitted to – among other violations – paying $30,000 over two years to Gardner’s parents so they could travel to see games. Then at 19 Gardner was diagnosed with a kidney disease which saw him drop out of the University of California, which some suspect had more to do with the cash than with kidneys.

“A lot of people have heard a story where my parents accepted money from the coach at the University of California,” he explains. “My decision actually had nothing to do with money, I knew nothing about the situation, and once the kidney problem arose, a lot of people have associated that with my parents but I’ve taken a rap. But in all reality, it was due to the kidney situation as to why I left UC. My father did what he did – but it was just a consequence of what was going on at the time. I had nothing to do with it. I do love my father and I think it was a situation that everybody had to learn from.”

Onto more positive matters: What kind of coaching philosophy does he hope to bring to La Salle High School?

“Well, they’ve had one coach for eighteen years,” Gardner says. “I’ve been able to start implementing my philosophy, which is really a defensive philosophy, we want to be a great defensive team and use our defense to create our offense. We played our first summer game against Providence yesterday and we won, so things are on the right track.”

And why the new summer league? What was the inspiration behind it?

“It’s basically just updating the basketball program at La Salle, letting people know that we wanna be a contender in the future and that we want to to have activities like a summer basketball league, tournaments and pick-up games at our school. We want to let the community know that in terms of basketball, we want to be on the rise and be a contender in high school basketball.”

“I played twelve years professional in Europe, in high school I was state player of the year in California in 1994, I was a McDonald’s All-American and I was rated number one point-guard in high school basketball in 1994,” Gardner says. “I’ve been around a lot of different professional teams, a lot of different coaches, philosophies and a lot of different personalities, and I’ve had to adapt to many teams. It’s helped me deal with different people, broaden my philosophy in terms of basketball, and it helped me have an appreciation for the position that I’m in.”

“My personal goals are just to get the team to play good quality basketball, to play with 100% effort and give their best,” he adds. “We’d like to finish top three in our league is a good, reasonable goal. I like to set goals that make you work and push towards something.”

Surely his life experiences with a serious illness and the controversy he faced as a youngster must have shaped his world-view along the way.

“I was a person who had achieved a lot of great things at a young age and at 19 I was diagnosed with a kidney disease,” Gardner says. “At that point my life changed and I had a realization that there was somebody bigger than me in this universe. My mother gave me a kidney at 26, so I have a renewed vision on life where I don’t take life for granted. I’m just thankful for every opportunity. I think it’s a blessing to work with kids and I want to help them be better men, help them achieve as much as possible with their lives and with basketball.”

How does that attitude translate onto the basketball court?

“I do believe there comes a point in every game where, it’s like, ‘Do you really want this or not?’ And I just want my kids to have that mental and physical fortitude to not give in and give their best,” he explains. “If we give our best, then we all can feel good about it.”

“But I’m more into the game of life,” he stresses. “How many kids are gonna go on and be professional basketball players? The numbers are very minimal. I’m about helping these kids become men of character. I want these kids to come back and say ‘Hey, coach. I’m in college, I just had a kid’. I just want to be a positive part of their lives.”

 

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