Wright On: Hammerheads fiasco leaves Mattos in limbo

Editor’s note: This story was revised to clarify Calvin Mattos’ potential compensation with the Hawaii Hammerheads.

This will be the 18th winter on earth for Calvin Mattos, but in at least one respect, it will be a stretch of time like none he can ever recall.

Mattos is in a tight circle of the most talented basketball players to emerge from the Big Island, yet with a Division II university literally across the street from Waiakea High School, where he graduated last spring, and a problematic minor league professional team supposedly interested in him, there will be no basketball for the 5-foot-10 guard with a high basketball IQ.

In a conversation last week with his parents and a reporter, Mattos was asked the last time he wasn’t on a team during basketball season, and said he has always been on a team. The reporter pushed back, always? Literally, always?

“Let me put it this way,” Mattos said, “I can’t ever remember not being on a team.”

His mother, April, cleared that up, saying Calvin played on his first youth basketball team when was 5 years of age.

Now, he’s been left behind after the dogged pursuit from a promoter/owner of a proposed Hilo franchise in something called the Oceania Basketball Association, with franchises said to be located in locations such as American Samoa, Guam, the Solomon Islands, Papaua New Guinea and the Cook Islands. That league, or at least the proposed Hilo franchise, seems to have been blown away with the trade winds.

So, too, did an opportunity to play with Vulcans after what the family perceived to be a lack of interest on the part of University of Hawaii at Hilo men’s basketball coach GE Coleman.

“I wanted to go to school (at UHH),” Mattos said last week, “but I guess the interest wasn’t there. It seemed like the best opportunity was with (the Hammerheads, nickname of the proposed Hilo franchise), but that hasn’t worked out, either.”

His parents, Jason and April, tried to guide their son through the process, each of them hoping he would be wearing the black and red of the Vulcans this season, but they both perceived a cool response from the school.

“We kept hearing from people, ‘Is he going to UHH?’” said Jason, “and they would all say they hoped he would sign with the Vulcans so they could come out and watch him play. There’s a lot of people here, believe me, who would come out to watch him play for the local school.

“I have nothing against coach Coleman,” Jason Mattos said, “nothing at all; he was just hard to talk to. I called and called and called and he never returned a call, he did not seem to have any interest. I take that back, we did arrange to meet him once and he called back to confirm, but that was it.”

While nothing much seemed to be happening with the local connection, Kevin Williams, the team president/coach for the proposed Hilo franchise, was on the phone constantly.

“He could not have been more interested,” Jason said. “I got calls from Kevin every day, I mean, every day, sometimes two or three calls in a day. He would say, ‘Has he made a decision? We can really use him; he’d start right away; he’ll make an impact,’ all those things.”

“Over here,” said April Mattos, motioning with her hands, “we had someone who was obviously very serious and over here, at the school, it was almost nothing.”

Originally, Jason said, Coleman offered $500 toward books and tuition, then eventually boosted it to $1,000.

“I’ll be honest,” Jason said, “it was insulting.”

The school would not allow Coleman to comment on any aspect of the Mattos situation, but over the summer, when he was allowed, Coleman said he wasn’t sure how much, if any, time Mattos would get on the floor as a freshman.

The Mattos family made a group decision to go with the Hammerheads, opting for the ones who were repeating their interest daily.

The money part of being a “professional” was something that never happened, the family said. Jason and Calvin shook their heads side-to-side when asked about the finances of the proposed team.

“Not a cent,” said April. “He hasn’t received one penny.”

There was no signing bonus, roster bonus, nothing, according to the family.

According to Jason, Calvin was told he’s be paid $3,000 a month, “and that they would play in two leagues, one from November to April, then another they were told that would extend from June to September.

Had that been the case, Calvin would have made in excess of $30,000 over the course of 12 months.

Instead, he has nothing. The Mattos family hasn’t heard from Williams in weeks. A Houston resident, they heard Williams lost his house and had to deal with major family issues, and that would all be understandable, but in fairness, hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August. Williams had said the Hammerheads would start play at the end of October, then it was changed until the first of November.

Either way, even if he lost his house, Williams could have taken five minutes to call in the last two months.

Here’s a kid fresh out of high school who always wanted to play at UHH, but the school’s interest didn’t match that of Calvin Mattos. What has he learned?

“That’s a great question,” Calvin said, “but I don’t think I know yet. It just seems too weird.”

A larger question is whether the NCAA will allow him to play after agreeing to play in a professional league, even if he received no money. The organization that controls college athletics in the United States is run like a cartel, that makes its own rules and decisions, most of the time while ignoring the precedence of similar decisions made previously.

The NCAA has never been a friend to college students and can simply rule Mattos ineligible and that would seem to be that.

But there are ways his cause might be helped. UHH is fortunate to have Roxanne Levenson, the Senior Woman Administrator and compliance director who has deep organizational knowledge of the NCAA and could be of help in an appeals process.

The school could also enlist the help of UH-Manoa, which has had its own dealings with the NCAA concerning basketball issues in recent years.

And Mattos might help his cause if he met with Coleman and was allowed to practice with the team if he enrolled in school for the winter semester in January. He would have to pay his own way, but if he had a chance to work with the Vulcans in practice, the school might be willing to improve its offer for the 2018-19 season when he could be a freshman in eligibility.

“It’s possible,” April said, “that’s an opportunity that’s out there if we could meet with them. We don’t carry grudges, we aren’t upset with anyone, it was just a crazy situation that happened.”

Jason said before the family made their decision, he spoke to Coleman and asked about playing time. Coleman responded with the predictable answer that nobody is guaranteed playing time, you earn your minutes in practice.

“I totally understand that,” Jason said, “and I respect it, that’s what a good coach would say, always. I shouldn’t have worded it that way, that’s totally on me, but we had so little contact with them and we had (Williams) promising a starting position, lots of playing time and all that, and I was trying to get an idea of the options we had.

“I hope (Coleman) knows I wasn’t trying to demand playing time,” Jason said, “that’s something I would never do, but if it sounded like that, I apologize. Our family believes in working for what you get and that doesn’t change with Calvin.”

The family has a history of a work ethic in ranching on the Hamakua coast and other ventures. There is no sitting around all day watching TV and playing video games.

“We work for what we want,” Jason said, “that’s what our family is all about. We will all have to work to get him a chance to continue to pursue this basketball dream.”

He may yet have that opportunity right here at home, which, after all the distractions, seems once again to be the best opportunity.

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