An interview with Coach Todd Wright, athletic director at Animo Ralph Bunche High School:

“Every student athlete is required by CIF that they must have their sports physical completed before they can try out for the team. Once they do that then they go and try out and compete. We take the best athletes based on that and go from there. The biggest thing is that they have their sports physical. After that, they will have to complete a sports packet that we provide them with. 

Grades are the other critical part. You can’t play sports if you have less than a 2.5 GPA and if you have an F in any classes. If you have F’s in any of your classes, then that means you are not academically eligible to join the team. You can get kicked out of the basketball team by not having good grades. There are also disciplinary issues for behaving inappropriately, for example doing drugs. 

We don’t allow drugs so if a kid is caught smoking they are no longer on the team and get other consequences. I’ve had 15 years of experience and out of those 15 years only one kid had to leave the team because he got caught smoking pot. 

Another way you can get kicked off is by getting in trouble with teachers. When you get in trouble with teachers, you get in trouble with Coach Wright or Coach Fukuyama, who is a girls’ basketball coach. We strongly believe that you have to be a good citizen and have good behavior because being a good student comes first so we put an emphasis on student athletes. 

The other part is that you need to take care of your business, which means showing up to practices, being a good teammate. If you are fighting with your teammates or doing anything irresponsible you can get in trouble. I don’t have a lot of rules but it’s all about being respectful, being a good sport so having good sportsmanship, and taking care of business in the classroom, on the court, whatever you’re doing. Those are the really simple things. If they violate those things they are potentially getting kicked off.”