Welcome to the Hardwood Hustle podcast where we know and believe in the value of a coach.

We're here to educate, empower, and encourage you to lead like never before.

As coaches, we have the ability to change young people's lives.

The team environment has historically demonstrated that power.

You hear players often say, if it wasn't for the game of basketball,

or if it wasn't for this team or this coach, I don't know where I'd be.

I don't know what I'd be doing.

It saved my life. Well, despite all of that, year after year, it's becoming riskier for coaches

to take chances on players who behaviorally could be titled, quote unquote, at risk.

A bad apple in the program could damage the entire program. A bad apple, depending on what

that player does, could tarnish your entire reputation, could tarnish the entire program,

and flip the entire community's perspective of you and your team. It could cost you jobs.

We've seen it happen, and most likely you have too. So it leads to an important

discussion that we're having today. Is it worth taking an at-risk player into your program?

Let's jump in.

TJ, this is a topic that I'm currently living through right now and I know a lot of coaches

around the country are probably dealing with something very similar and having these type of thoughts and processes and questions.

The question is really simple.

Do you run the risk of bringing in at-risk players into your program?

And is that risk worth it?

I know there was an incident here in Maryland with one of the

schools that I've worked with, and it made national news. There was a group of players, a small

...