My article “Hoop Raiders, Part 2” came out Thursday, and has apparently already reached basketball families in Kansas City. Today I heard from the parents of two former Milestone Christian Academy players, each of whom wanted to share a laundry list of complaints about the school. Their kids, Willie Reed and Cortez Barrett, are two of the ten varsity basketball players that recently transferred out of Milestone.
Reed, who is six-foot-eleven and has signed to play for the Saint Louis University Billikens next year, attended Milestone for one semester before returning last month to Bishop Miege High School. Barrett, a junior, attended Milestone from January through December 2007 and now goes to Center Senior High, a Kansas City public school.
Reed’s dad, Will Reed Sr., says his son didn’t play basketball this past semester at Bishop Miege in order to focus on academics and maintain his NCAA eligibility. Barrett’s mom, Lynn Richard, says her son is currently ineligible but that she is hoping to get that ruling reversed by next fall.
As I understand it, a sports reporter for the Kansas City Star will soon publish an investigative article about Milestone. I've left messages with the reporter but haven’t heard back with confirmation of the story, or when it will appear.
Until I do, I’m going to hold off on looking into the allegations levied by Lynn Richard and Will Reed Sr. As it is, Milestone’s coach/pastor/principal, Peter Flournoy, still has not returned repeated messages that I left for him last week. SLU assistant basketball coach Angres Thorpe also did not get back to me about Reed’s status.
Milestone is still open. But as I was looking around on the Web for more info last week, I noticed that its Web site is shut down. For some reason, I can’t find the cached version either. On YouTube I came across this “testimony” video (in which Cortez Barrett appears) from last school year, as well as this promo video, also from last year. Here’s one that apparently takes a look inside the school.
I’ll post again and link to the Star article if and when it appears.
