Michael Bontemps remembers the feeling he had when the Grant High School girls basketball team had arrived. It was the final minutes of a game against longtime rival, Lincoln High School, last season.
Bontemps, in his third season as coach, called a timeout with the game tied and drew an out-of-bounds play. He told the team to keep up the pace and that it was their game to win or lose. The ball flew seamlessly from forward, Nina Radford, to wing, Anna Hekker, who made the lay-up. The final score was Grant 41, Lincoln 39.
After winning the Portland Interscholastic League title with a perfect 16-0 record and going 21-4 overall, the buzz about the arrival of the Grant girls in Oregon had been firmly set. The team lost to the eventual state champion in the state playoffs. But with a roster laden with freshmen and sophomores who received heavy playing time, the future was looking bright.
“We had gotten to a level so that now we were somebody to be reckoned with,” he recalls thinking.
But as the 2015-16 school year starts, the girls program is rudderless. Bontemps, 61, is out as coach. Administrators gave him an ultimatum at the end of the school year: resign or be fired. They want to take the program in a different direction, they told him.
But Bontemps doesn’t want to give up on the transformation he started. “I’m not ready to walk away,” says the man who was named last year’s PIL Coach of the Year. “I have a good relationship with my kids. I don’t think some of them, the administration at Grant, understand just how hard I’m working. Do they really get how much of me that I am investing in this program?”
Grant administrators say they won’t talk about the details surrounding Bontemps’ departure. They say they have to make tough decisions every day about school programs and athletics.
Athletic Director Brian Samore says the issue is between Bontemps and the administration. “A lot of it is something that’s been brewing for a while,” Samore says. “So I’m not gonna share that much nuts and bolts…because I don’t think it’s really appropriate. But I would just say philosophical differences.”
So how does a highly decorated coach who transforms a program lose his job after a team finishes undefeated? It depends on whom you talk to.
Current and former players from Grant describe a dedicated coach who pushes for the best out of team members. His track record speaks for itself. He led Jefferson High School to a class 5A state championship in 2008 and his team went 27-0 that year. In his last three seasons at the school, he compiled a 71-11 record.
Now a Grant senior, Hekker remembers playing for Bontemps as a freshman when he first arrived. She didn’t have much confidence in her game at the time. “He gave me the opportunity to like believe in myself,” she says. “He never was negative on me and he kind of just gave me a better outlook on like me as a player…It’s kind of made me realize who I am a little bit, like how much I love this sport. And he was a big part of that.”
Khiarica Rasheed, a junior, agrees. “I think of him as my grandpa because he does a lot of things for us,” she says. “More than just basketball, you know? He’s willing to talk to you about family. He helps you out.”
Caylee Newsom, a 2013 graduate, played point guard for Bontemps in her senior year. She described a program in rapid decline before he arrived. “If it wasn’t for Bontemps, there wasn’t going to be a basketball team at Grant,” she says.
Players, assistant coaches and parents all acknowledge the influence Bontemps has had with his brand of basketball and how he wants to build the program.
“His main idea was that he wanted to change Grant women’s basketball into a bigger community where all of us would, you know, trust each other and communicate with each other and build a bond,” says senior Haven Williams, who has played her entire high school career under Bontemps.
Nichole Colombo, Williams’ mom, says, “It saddens me because…to Haven he was like a grandfather. He adored the kids, I think, and really wanted the best for them.”
But the rift between Bontemps and Grant administrators grew into something that couldn’t be repaired. “There were a number of really positive moments,” Samore says. “But there were unfortunately a number of disconcerting moments, as well.”
Bontemps grew up in Chicago and attended Illinois Benedictine University on a football scholarship. After finishing his schooling, he moved around the West before landing in Portland. He was a teacher for Portland Public Schools and also coached football and basketball.
He continued coaching after his teaching career ended and wound up at Grant when then-principal Vivian Orlen hired him to run a broken girls program. “He was ready to throw his entire life into working on behalf of really building, or I should say, rebuilding a program,” says Orlen.
For years, even decades, the team had been a perennial doormat in the Oregon basketball world. Teams that had the Generals on their schedule clearly marked off a probable win long before tipoff. In 2011-12, the Generals were ranked 36th in the state out of 44 teams.
Vice Principal Diallo Lewis, then one of the school’s athletic directors, remembers how disjointed the program was, with only about 20 students signed up to play at all levels.
“Bontemps did…a lot with truly very, very little,” says Lewis. “When you think of facilities and so many other things, he put in countless hours to help build the program. His heart and his desire to support young people is definitely in the right place.”
His work included strengthening a youth basketball program that was co-founded by Molly Newcomer with a keen eye toward Grant’s future.
“He was great to work with,” says Newcomer, who helped to start the Grant Youth Basketball program before Bontemps arrived. “He understands that to have a strong basketball program at the high school level, you have to have youth development happening in the younger grades.”
At the high school level, Bontemps had inherited a team with Newsom and a handful of seniors. Freshmen and sophomores didn’t get too much playing time back then, but he had his eye on rebuilding.
“The first year, I had seniors who had been part of two other programs, basically,” he says. “And they came in and they had their own idea about things…we had to learn how to play hard, practice hard. And that was something new at that level for most of them. All of them, actually.”
The team finished 12-12 before the coach set his sights on a new crop of talent. His second season wasn’t easy as the team dropped to 6-18. Some wondered if the program was in jeopardy but Bontemps wasn’t worried.
“We played seven of the top 10 teams in the state of Oregon and got drilled,” he recalls. “We got beat by 30 routinely, but what I wanted them to see was: ‘How do good teams act? How hard do they play?’
“And you have to understand how to do that. And so from that experience, we built on it in the summer, and I got them to buy in – ‘We’re gonna lose unless you learn how to play hard.’”
He opened the gym on Saturday mornings and pushed the girls over the summer. Despite living in Damascus, a 30-minute drive from Grant, he was constantly at the gym. By the 2014-2015 season, the youth program was paying off and his players were showing a new swagger. They finished the season undefeated in the PIL and ended the year ranked 13th in the state.
2007-2008: Michael Bontemps is the head women’s basketball coach at Jefferson High School; overall record of 27-0, Class 5A State Champions
2011-2012: Kara Sandoval’s last year as the head women’s basketball coach at Grant; overall record of 9-16
2012-2013: Michael Bontemps hired as head women’s basketball coach at Grant; overall record of 12-12
2014-2015: PIL Coach of the Year; PIL Champions (16-0); overall record of 21-4
June 2015: forced to resign
“Now, it makes sense three years down the road,” he says. “Now, it clicks. And we got some really good players and we got some kids…who wanted to win, who were competitive. And we got some really good young players who added to the mix.”
But Bontemps faced scrutiny from the administration. He says he was called out by Principal Carol Campbell and others for going after referees during several games. Some critics say he was too hard on players, oftentimes berating them during games.
Junior Princess McNair, now a student at Jefferson, said her experience was a bad one at Grant. “I didn’t feel like he was building me up enough to get to where I wanted to be at,” she says. “We just really didn’t click. And then every time I did something, you know, bad, it was yelling and just yelling at me and stuff. It wasn’t really like encouraging.”
He was told by administrators, he needed to change his demeanor.
By the 2014-2015 school year, Samore had taken over as athletic director and the conflict with the administration grew, Bontemps says.
In one instance, a parent showed up at the gym during practice and complained loudly to Bontemps about playing time, says Bontemps’ assistant coach Dennis Carline.
Carline was so dismayed that he says he sent an email to Grant administrators about the incident. He says he never heard back. “So that tells you right there, are you backing your coach up?” Carline asks.
Alizia Riddle also served as an assistant coach. She worries about the message that’s being sent to future coaches. “If administration doesn’t support a coach when something like that happens, and support meaning something is done, a precedent is set, a meeting is had,” she says, “there’s no way a coach can feel safe and supported in that environment.”
Samore acknowledged that some parents raised concerns but he said such information is private. He declined to go into any detail about the girls program last year. “What goes on amongst parents with me is something that I want to maintain confidential,” he says.
Some parents say they felt the athletic department and Bontemps’ program got off to a rocky start that became irreparable.
Colombo oversaw fundraising and communication. She helped organize the sale of banners in the gym to raise money for the girls program. Players contacted local businesses and sold the signage with the money to be used to fund team camps, to purchase shoes and other equipment for the team.
Last year, Samore decided that sales from future signs would go to the athletic department to be split between the teams that use the gym. “We all help each other,” he says.
Colombo sees it differently. She and Bontemps initiated the fundraising strategy and laid the groundwork. “He took away all of our signage,” she says. “He came and said, ‘OK, now all that money from those signs comes to the athletic department.’…He basically took away our money.”
Bontemps admits that he didn’t always communicate well with the administration. He says early on in the season he had a few meetings with Campbell and Samore. But he felt like they were talking down to him.
“So you give a directive and I’m supposed to jump? I’m not built like that,” Bontemps says.
Campbell says that she had a good relationship with Bontemps and that they talked several times throughout the year. She says the supervision of the coach was left up to Samore and the district athletic office. “I haven’t even seen the resignation letter,” says Campbell, “so I can’t really speak to the resignation because I don’t know that much about it.”
Bontemps says he found out about his job status when Marshall Haskins, the district’s athletic director, called him. Bontemps has a long history of working with Haskins and appreciates his honesty and open dialogue. “I was given a choice,” Bontemps says. “I could resign or they could have a meeting to fire me.”
He says Haskins told him Campbell had wanted him gone the previous season, in 2013-2014, but he had convinced her to let Bontemps stay because of his success with the team.
Campbell says she doesn’t recall a conversation with Haskins about Bontemps and said she can’t comment on the case because it’s a personnel matter. “I will say that each year at every Portland high school, coaches’ contracts are reviewed,” she says.
Haskins said he can’t comment directly, either. But of Bontemps, he says: “I have a very good relationship with Mr. Bontemps…I don’t hire or fire coaches. That’s not my job in PIL athletics.”
Bontemps says he’s been trying to meet with Campbell and Samore, but they have declined his requests. He also hasn’t turned in a resignation letter.
In the meantime, the girls coaching job for Grant has been posted and school officials say they want to have it filled soon. Samore has interviewed a handful of candidates so far.
Tyrone Harvey, whose daughter, Evan, will be a senior on the team, is outraged. He blames Samore for the debacle. “I’m very disappointed with Mr. Samore and with the administration for first not coming to the parents and saying that there was a problem, and then maybe not coming to the parents and the coach to try to fix the problem,” Harvey says. “As a parent and as a community person, I’m at a loss that you get rid of a guy that, you know, coached an undefeated team.”
Samore says removing a winning coach isn’t a rarity in high school sports. “We wanted to take the program in a different direction and I don’t think it’s necessarily one that aligns with the coaching philosophy and the approach of Coach Bontemps,” he says.
Brenda Harvey, Evan’s mother, says Bontemps helped her daughter through a series of nagging injuries and didn’t avoid parents who had questions. “I always felt I could go to him if I ever needed to and talk with him about things,” she says. “So I felt he was open to hearing my thoughts…I’m gonna miss him.”
Kristi West whose daughter, Justice, played with Grant Youth Basketball and then played for Grant, wonders what will happen to the team. Parents, she says, have been kept in the dark by the athletic office. “We haven’t heard anything else about a new coach,” she says. “It just seems like everybody’s kind of out of the loop with what’s going on.”
Colombo thinks finding a coach like Bontemps will be difficult. “Who are they gonna get that’s gonna have control of this team enough to get them 16-0 again?” she wonders.
Samore says he’s not worried.
“There’s plenty of time between now and the basketball season,” he says. “I’m not even going to say what we’re doing. Coach Bontemps has resigned. We’re looking for a new coach. The job is posted. And I’m gonna be looking.”
Campbell says the program will survive because the roster is rich with talent and many of the girls have played together for a while. “I think our goal would be to find somebody who can pick up right where we are and continue the work ethic, the tradition, continue to develop the players and stay on that kind of path to success,” she says.
Many players say what gets lost in the decision to jettison Bontemps is how much he meant to team members.
“He always said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing. You know you’re gonna get somewhere,’” Evan Harvey says. “And that made me feel good.”
Haven Williams puts it simply: “He’s not only like a coach. He’s basically, you know, family to us. He’s always been there for us. He’s always done things for us outside of basketball.”
