ODESSA, Texas — A lot of guys dream about going back to high school and recapturing their athletic glory days. A man who went by the name of Jerry Joseph did it, police say, and now he’s in big trouble.
Authorities say the boyish-looking 22-year- old posed as a 16-year-old sophomore phenom to lead the Permian High School basketball team to the state playoffs. He was jailed on fraud charges, and the West Texas high school that inspired the movie “Friday Night Lights” might have to forfeit its season.
“Everyone just thought he was a big guy,” said Permian senior football player Steven Pipes. “He played the part good, skipping down the hallways acting goofy like a 16-year-old.”
Joseph, who averaged about 20 points per game over the final nine games heading into the playoffs, was a starter and played center and forward. But suspicions about the player’s identity first arose when three Florida basketball coaches familiar with a former player named Guerdwich Montimere recognized him last month at an amateur tournament in Little Rock, Ark. Montimere, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti, graduated from Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 2007.
Montimere was arrested and charged with failure to identify himself to a police officer. If convicted of the misdemeanor, he could face a maximum of six months in jail and a $2,500 fine.
“I feel like I was hit by a ton of bricks,” said district athletic director Leon Fuller, head football coach at Colorado State from 1982-88. “In my 50 years in education, I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
