Stories of coaches caring for their players are met with cynicism in the age of Joe Paterno, but some coaches still care – even for players who broke their hearts.

Derek Swafford, the boys basketball coach at Sacramento High School, has always left his door open to Kevin Galloway, a star-crossed former player who probably cost Swafford a state title or two with past lapses in maturity.

Galloway was the Bee Player of the Year in 2005, generally a prelude to greater things for the recipient, but not so for him.

Not drafted by the NBA earlier this year, Galloway is barely hanging onto pro aspirations in an instructional league in Idaho while the NBA lockout has prevented any contact with prospective NBA employers. What should have been an elite college career at USC and Kentucky instead wound through a backwater junior college and a climax at a small school in southern Texas.

The warning signs for Galloway's wrong turns were revealed at Sac High, when bad grades, a bad attitude and a little lying about schoolwork not submitted were the reasons Galloway sat on the bench in games where championship trophies were there to be had.

"I cried," said Swafford, who benched Galloway to the detriment of winning aspirations in his senior year in 2006. The wayward 6-foot-7 star wore a ubiquitous smirk back then. He took it and his talents to USC, while Swafford – as much a role model as a coach to young African American men – was stern with Galloway but never turned his back on him.

While the backdrop of this story is sports, the relevance transcends sports. It's about the lengths to which an educator will keep on teaching, even when the student has moved on.

It's about what happens when the glowing idolatry of the sports pages doesn't pan out and what you do then. Galloway came back to Swafford this fall at loose ends, without an outlet to play basketball and a need to make money.

So Swafford put him to work at a home for troubled boys in Woodland where Swafford, a trained social worker, earns money to supplement what he makes coaching boys basketball.

Suddenly, Galloway was thrust into the position of being a role model for teenage boys, many of whom have been arrested or expelled from school for anti-social behavior – or who have been homeless and abused.

"I would tap one of them on the stomach and he'd say, 'Don't touch me,' " Galloway said.

Swafford chimed in: "Not everybody can work in that kind of setting. … It's hard."

Some context: Galloway, who used to soar to the basket at Sac High, was viewed around here as the can't-miss kid who missed. The fault was on him for taking a Rolls-Royce of promise and ramming it into a tree.

Ryan Anderson, the next Bee Player of the Year after Galloway, is now with the Orlando Magic in the NBA. More recent winners such as Chase Tapley, Brendan Lane and Josiah Turner are all at major colleges.

Galloway not only could have been one of those guys, he should have been one of those guys.

It's no coincidence that until very recently Galloway was back in Sacramento – reconnecting with Swafford. He needed help and found it in giving of himself to young men who had it much worse than he did.

"Sometimes, some of these kids would just be raging," Galloway said. "They wouldn't know what to do with their anger. It would be my job to talk them down."

What does Swafford want? For Galloway to have a productive life. "I could see him coaching one day. Maybe one day he could coach here and do my job," Swafford said. "I would love for that to be his story."

That's quite a statement, considering the suspensions in key games lost that marked Galloway's departure from Sac High.

The 23-year-old Galloway is in Idaho now, playing in an instructional league and hoping to latch onto an NBA team now that the league lockout appears to be ending.

What did Galloway say to current Sac High players when meeting with them recently?

"I tell the kids now to listen to Coach, he knows what he's talking about."

That's progress, anyway. Some lessons are harder than others for some young men to learn, but it helps if the coach delivering them cares about a lot more than just winning games.

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Call The Bee's Marcos Breton, (916) 321-1096.

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