Fair enough; he has the right to his choices.

But would keeping on with playing for Ohio have foreclosed his music dream?  Doubt it.  In fact the pub and college education could have helped the music career significantly.

How did he leave the team?  Did he give the coaches the courtesy of letting them know his choice?  Or did he just not show up.

I don't know the answer to how he left the team.  Thinking here seems to be that he just didn't show up.  That type of thinking--or lack thereof--seems to be what's drawing astonishment here.  A lack of maturity showing.  A lack which may well be hurting the young man himself.

last i checked eg321, this board welcomes opinions.  doesn't matter if they are good, bad or make any sense at all. doesn't matter whether they're about a person you know or care about.

you can express your opinion but please recognize that others may state theirs also, whether you like what they say, the thought process that went into them, etc. 

I sure don't know any details. That said, kids at his age often make decisions without weighing all the factors. I hope he had some mature adult counsel him on the pros and cons. When a kid has a chance for a full ride that often stretches to 5 years with redshirts that is equivalent to about $150K ($30K/year for out of state).  A degree lasts a lifetime and is something to use, or fall back on, after moving on from music or basketball.

(A skimmable aside: I just love that we're all so out of touch and we just don't "get it." And why do I have to wish guys the best when they leave the program? I'm not rooting for the people, I'm rooting for the jersey. Players are calloused and call fans loser wannabes, so I've taken the same approach towards players. If they don't appreciate the fans and treat them like losers, I treat the players like commodities. You take off the green, you're just another dude. Skeedaddle.)

Most of the guys on here have lived a lot longer than I have, a lot longer than Steve has. Do you think they didn't have dreams when they were 22 years old, too? 

Fact: I love music. LOOOOOOOVVVVEEEE music. Every kind, from raw tribal in Africa to rockabilly to country to rock to electronic to hip hop to Gregorian Chants. Yeah, I'm that douchebag who likes everything that you can't stand talking to at a concert.

This isn't about the music. This is about quitting basketball to make a statistically dumb decision. This is like passing up a 36-yard field goal to chuck it into the end zone with one second left. This is taking Darko instead of Wade or Melo because centers are more valuable than guards and forwards. This is taking a scholarship well over $100,000 and trading it away to be one in a million trying to get a record deal.

Is it wrong to chase one's dream? Hell no. If Steve makes it, we'll all look like a bunch of morons. He may fart on Athens while flying over in his Gulfstream someday. Who knows? 

But some things in life are about patience and smarts. Economics is one of those things. This is a simple economic decision, and he chose the hail mary pass.

One final and unneccessary comparison: Quitting and leaving behind a D-I basketball scholarship to try to become a hip hop star is like me quitting my day job to try to become a world champion hot dog eater. 

This ain't about music. I'm mocking the decision because it makes no logical sense. Dreams are ignorant, sometimes in a good way, often in dumb ways.

And I wanted to front a band just like Fugazi when I was 17. I didn't skip college to follow that dream, thankfully....

Final fact: If someone is reading about themselves on a message board and marking down names to smite on Twitter, they are 1) LeBron James or 2) A narcissist or 3) both.*

(* Skimmable Aside:There's a message board with a thread dedicated to hating me and the job I do. Honestly. It's a precious little thing I looked at once. I never looked again, though I've been told it has reached dozens of pages pages and thousands of views. If you're sure about what you're doing in life, you  don't need to get fuel from people doubting you.)

Steve...if you read this..I spoke with a music producer who has worked with Wiz..Posner..he thinks your making a terrible choice..don't close one door to hopefully open another..continue in school and use your resources here to furthur your musical career..think of your marketabilty as a college basketball star who happens to be a hip hop star also..without the education and athletics your just one of millions starving rappers or singers..this isn't american idol its real life.

The people that actually know Steve Coleman know that he is a great guy and great friend..all these so called Ohio supporters are quick to throw kids under the bus! This is not slavery..if akid wants to stop playing a sport..leave school..play music..join the miltary..work at mcdonalds..well darnit in america we can do that! I think he should stay in school and play while doin his music...
BUT I am not Steve Coleman so intil you walk a inch in that mans shoes you cannot judge him because if he hadve stayed at Ohio and played terrible and not had his heart and soul in to being on the court you arseholes would have still ripped him to shreds..good luck Steve thanks for the memories!

We need more posts about what a great guy he is and how we can't judge him because we don't know him intimately and haven't walked in his shoes.

Sure.  And everyone gets a championship trophy just for playing and every day is 80 degrees and sunny.

Grow up; sometimes people make judgments and have wisdom to lend.  The guy's made a choice that is, at least, borderline knucklehead.  Sure, he may succeed and laugh at all of us who think he should hoop and get his degree.  But the odds are vastly against his success--no matter how much you think we should be all sugar all the time.

It's called reality.  Deal with it.  It applies, sadly, no matter what age you are.

It is never a bad idea for an entrepreneur to have some business exposure.  Good ideas and bad business can spell disaster for even the hottest artists.  It is easy for me to say stay in school, play hoops, continue to work on your music and learn some business basics.  I would much rather be Jay-Z than M.C. Hammer.  Both sold a lot of albums, but one had no business sense.  Pure risk and calculated risk are two different things. 

Still don't want to admit that he has some responsibility here, do ya.  If there was a problem with suspension/scholarship or whatever, don'tcha think there was a reason for it..  Did the young' man's behavior or judgment cause his own problems, perhaps..

Oh.  The hard times rap.  Gee, he must be the only guy in the state who's had difficult circumstances.  Get a clue; you'd have a difficult time finding anyone who hasn't had to overcome stuff.

Next stop:  train wreck.

It is not about basketball, it is about education:

Bureau of Labor Statistics:
For those with less than a high school diploma, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 13.8 percent during July. For those with a high school diploma but no college, the rate was 10.1 percent. For those with some college experience but no college diploma, the rate was 8.3 percent. And for those with an undergraduate degree or better, the rate was 4.5 percent.  These ratios are consistent over time. 

FYI - For July, masters' degrees was 4.9 percent. For those with professional degrees, it was 2.0 percent, and for those with doctorates, it was 1.9 percent (but that's because the doctorates keep staying in school and "teaching" - lol).

Maybe you are right, I suppose it wouldn't be crazy for a coach to give an ultimatum to a player, "Stop smoking weed and breaking the law and GETTING CAUGHT BREAKING THE LAW, or you can't come back". While a lot of people know I still have my doubts on Groce, he is not the jackass here.

Good luck convincing these sticks-in-the-mud of that. There's a general attitude of "it's against the law, it must be bad" in these parts.

To Monroe,

It is obvious you didn't understand what I meant when I said someone with the background as portrayed in Hard Times and the hypothetical situation I put forth about him having a scholarship taken away. I was saying that if he won't have school payed for anymore, and he doesn't have any money, why on earth would he come back when he could just as easily find another school willing to pay for his school to play ball there? He wouldn't have to take out loans to play basketball for your precious OU and that in itself would a pretty smart move if you ask me. Telling me to "get a clue" when you obviously don't comprehend what you have just read is quite ridiculous. To answer your question about what he is responsible for I will ask you this, did I ever say that he didn't do anything wrong in reference to him getting in trouble w/ the weed? Did I ever say he shouldn't have been suspended? Did I ever say none of this is Steve's fault? Flatly, No. I didn't say any of that because he is responsible for his actions when he got in trouble his freshman year, and when he got in trouble this past season. He made some bad choices. He should have had to be punished for making those choices. However, I NEVER said he shouldn't be held responsible for them. I said he shouldn't be getting ripped by old farts like you for choosing not to return, if that indeed was the case. IF that is exactly what happened, yes, he could have gone about it better. I am 100% positive there is more to this though than him just not coming back.

To Flomo,

Unless you are a member of the coaching staff, a player on the team, or Steve himself, you cannot flatly say with any certainty that none of the hypotheticals are true. I don't know if they are or not, I was simply presenting plausible scenarios for what could have happened. To your comment about why the scholarship couldn't have been rescinded, my answer is if he did indeed take Steve's scholarship for a year with the belief that he would earn it back, he wouldn't just give it to somebody else. And yes, there was talk about him still being suspended, although I do not know how much longer the suspension could have been.  People say that are "stunned" by things all the time, but that is almost never the case. Roger Clemens was "stunned" that Brian MacNamee called him a liar. I don't know this coach at all except for what I read about him here before I decided to post, but I didn't get the feeling that he is Honest Abe or anything. I am not saying he is lying, I am saying though that he wasn't stunned. Steve and him have had problems since day one, and that coupled with the suspension are more than likely what lead to Steve not returning to the basketball team. I know it wasn't all the coach, and I know it wasn't all Steve who decided what happened, but from what I was told, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. 

To clear up any misconceptions about my thoughts on my friend, yes, I do think that what he did in the past was dumb. I have told him this. He made mistakes and I understand 100% that he needed to be disciplined. I didn't fully understand why he wasn't coming back to the program, and I hope that what he told me he is planning on doing from here out he follows through on, but I will defend him and the decision (if that indeed was the case) he made if it made him happy. Like I said, if he just decided to up and leave (which I was told isn't what happened) then he could have handled it better, but I am not going to criticize him for doing what he felt was in his best interest. Scholarships are a year to year thing. He doesn't owe OU anything. He might owe his teammates something, but from their Twitter pages, it seems like they definitely aren't harboring any ill feelings toward Steve, so you all shouldn't either.
Officially my last post, so all you people that don't like what I had to say can sleep easy now.

Get that Jordan money boy, f**k bein' Pippen.