What's good for the nba isn't good for high schools

In a league that contains Rasheed Wallace on one coast, Pat Riley on the other and Ron Artest right in the middle (and right in the middle of everything), suspensions are as frequent as misspelled words at a Sylvan Learning Center.

The frequency for collegiate coaches and players receiving suspensions is somewhere between misspelled words and unheard of.

High school coaches, however, set the standard. So, the news of Scott County Central coach Melvin Porter allegedly making inappropriate remarks to one of his players and getting suspended by the school is disturbing.

Even more disturbing is that Porter is the husband of my former elementary school teacher, where we learned: "If you don't have something nice to say ..."

In talking with Porter during the seMissourian Christmas tournament, he expressed to me that he had trouble getting his players to play as a team at times. The comments raised my internal eyebrow, but I thought nothing more of it until now.

Although Porter's actions are alleged, the most intriguing fact lies in the school's silence. And that alone makes more noise than anything else could.

I noticed SportsCenter tried its own brand of weekly previews. Nice try, Nick Bakay, but there's only one Week Ahead:

Today

If you have the day off tomorrow, the Boston Celtics are in Memphis (or as one of my teachers once said, the Boston Keltics.) See a team rich in history and tradition play a team just trying to make the playoffs. 7 p.m.

Wednesday

If you don't feel like sitting through another eye-stabbing episode of I-couldn't-make-it-on-late-night Arsenio Hall's dumb American-Idol-wannabe show, try this: Southeast Missouri State hosts Eastern Michigan at 7 p.m. in gymnastics. Go watch the sport that almost wasn't this year.

Thursday

The Blues would put student ID night on a Thursday. You know, some of us are actually students with real IDs, and we can't go to games on school nights. You can get $15 mezzanine seats or $30 club seats with a valid student ID. The hockey team formerly known as the Winnipeg Jets fly into town to take on the Blues. Its also Dierberg's and Pepsi Autographed Travel Mugs Night for all fans. On second thought, who needs school anyway? I'm a published author. Face-off is at 7 p.m.

Friday

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you won't see Southeast's basketball team in the league finals in Nashville this year. But you can still see great basketball. The first session of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament begins at noon with the first women's semifinal. The first men's semi is at 6 p.m. Two Andrew Jackson papers will get you into all of the tournament games over the weekend, and half that gets you into two games.

Saturday

I won't even climb the tree to say you won't see Southeast on this day. The women's final is at 11 a.m. with the men at 3 p.m. The two-day tournament will be at the Gaylord Entertainment Center.

Sunday

Fans at Columbia won't be chanting "Rock, chalk, Jayhawk!" No, they'll be chanting a good ol' fashioned "Overrated!" The Kansas Jayhawks bring their No. 7 ranking into the Hearnes Center against Missouri at 1 p.m. Both teams could use this game. This one will be a slobberknocker.

David Wilson is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian and a junior at Central High School. His column "The Week Ahead" appears every Monday.