Hubbard embraces second chance

He doesn’t advertise it, but he doesn’t hide it either.

The fact is Anthony Hubbard is a convicted felon and there’s no way to talk about his story without referring to the biggest misstep he ever made in his 26 years of life. At age 18, he was involved in an armed robbery that sent him to prison for almost four years.

Hubbard understands this mistake will follow him for the rest of his life. So if you ask him about it, he’ll tell you as much as you want to know without a hint of annoyance. It never gets old, even though it is clearly something he’s not proud of.

The reason he does not shy away is because he’s no longer the same person that devastated his mother so much she just cried the first time she saw him in jail. He’s no longer the aimless kid without a purpose who got expelled from Woodbridge High School in the 10^th grade.

And he’s no longer just a cautionary tale about missed opportunities. There’s no shaking of heads over what could have been when it comes to talking about Hubbard.

Instead, there’s affirmation upon affirmation about how Hubbard found his way out of the pit and transformed himself into a standout student, an upstanding leader and a highly-recruited Division I men’s basketball player.

This is a story Hubbard wants out there, if for no other reason than to share how grateful he is for the second chance he’s been given and how grateful he is for the platform he has now to speak to kids, who like himself once, may be teetering on the edge between right and wrong and don’t know where to go.

So when the 6-foot-5 Hubbard announces his decision among his final four choices of Nebraska, Penn State, Iowa and Iona Saturday at noon at the Hylton Boys & Girls Club in Dale City, he’ll stay true to his message. Yes, it is a big day from a basketball standpoint, but it’s more significant than that.

 “The thing I came to realize is that my situation can help somebody else,” Hubbard said. “I went to prison to where I am now and I want to give people hope, to keep them going to work hard and look at my story and see what happened. It’s unfortunate, but it happened.”

A TROUBLED START

As a teenager, Hubbard describes himself as “hard-headed.” He tuned people out and heard what he wanted to hear. And that led to some bad choices.

For one, school didn’t interest him at all and he started skipping. When he did show up, he was late for classes, if he showed up at all.

After being expelled from Woodbridge, he was placed in a home-school program because of his behavior, where he was expected to take on-line courses. But that didn’t stop the slide either and he refused to finish the courses.

Hubbard’s dad was not an active part of his life and Hubbard’s mom, who primarily raised him, had to work a lot to support Hubbard and his four brothers and three sisters.

Then one of Hubbard’s brothers died in 2002 and Hubbard took it hard.

“I didn’t have any true guidance and I was doing my own thing,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard started hanging out with unhealthy influences and that led to a fateful decision one night.

In December of 2003, he joined three other boys, one he considered a friend and two others he only knew in passing, to break into a house and rob it.

The plan was this: Hubbard drove the car and served as the lookout, while the other three went into the house, Hubbard said.

They were not caught immediately, but eventually word started getting around that the cops were closing in. Hubbard said he had chills from the initial experience, but after a couple of days, he started to breathe easier, thinking that he wasn’t going to get caught.

But when he called his house one day and his mom told him the police had been by, Hubbard decided to turn himself in three days after the crime was committed. His mom told him it was the right thing to do and he agreed. He ended up pleading guilty to the robbery charge.

But the fallout was not easy.

Before leaving for prison, Hubbard remembered being held in the jail in Manassas when his mom came to see him.

“She started crying,” Hubbard said. “There were no words. That cut me deep to know that I was the reason my mother was crying.”

Hubbard was initially sent to a youth offender program at St. Brides Correctional Center in Chesapeake before finishing out his time at Indian Creek Correctional Center, also in Chesapeake.

Hubbard said he appeared before the parole board three times and was denied each time. Finally, in December of 2007, he was released. The question was now what to do with his life after three years and 11 months behind bars.

“I didn’t have a plan,” Hubbard said.

TAKING A CHANCE

Hubbard’s love for basketball took off in middle school when he started playing for Glen Williams, a local AAU coach. Hubbard was good friends with Williams’ son and Williams took Hubbard under his wing.

But while he enjoyed playing the sport, Hubbard could not keep his academics up to par to be eligible to play in high school. In fact, he never played at Woodbridge because his grades were never good enough.

And then coming out of prison, Hubbard initially figured he had no chance of playing basketball again, especially with his record and because at his age most players had already finished college.

He worked at different jobs, but nothing stuck. He also got his high school diploma. Basketball, though, remained a pipedream at best.

But three friends of his from Woodbridge, Stan Allen, Damien Keyes and Antoine Phillips, believed Hubbard had the skills to play in college even though he had not played any form of organized basketball since middle school.

So in the summer of 2009, they approached Dave Miller, the head men’s basketball coach at Frederick Community College, about the possibility of Hubbard coming there. All three had played for Miller at one time or another. 

Having been informed of Hubbard’s background, Miller went to his administration to see whether the school could recruit Hubbard.

FCC did not take the situation lightly. Athletic director Tom Jandovitz did extensive background checks on Hubbard. The result was that the school agreed to admit Hubbard, but only as a student. They wanted him to strictly focus on academics for a year before playing basketball.

Hubbard, though, wanted to play immediately so he politely declined FCC’s offer and, through the help of a friend, got hooked up with Odessa College in Texas.

Hubbard did well academically there, posting a 3.4 grade point average, but he was miserable from a basketball standpoint. He wasn’t playing as much as he would have liked and averaged only 6.3 points per game.

Wanting to be closer to home so his family could see him play, Hubbard approached FCC about enrolling there.

Again, FCC did its due diligence. Jandovitz talked to the AD at Odessa, while FCC’s dean of students talked to his counterpart down in Odessa.

Jandovitz wanted to make sure that Hubbard was indeed someone they could trust to behave appropriately.

And each person he heard back from, including those from Odessa, those directly involved in Hubbard’s case from the arresting officer to the parole officers and even Hubbard’s first two employers when he got released, all said the same thing.

“This is a kid you can take a chance on,” Jandovitz said.

Hubbard was upfront with the school about his time in prison.

“He knows he made a mistake,” Jandovitz said. “But he’s become a leader on the team with his life experiences and you can see that leadership. He’s very affable and straightforward. He looks you in the eye when you talk to him. I’m sure he’d rather not talk about it, but that he does is a gigantic sign of maturity.”

RISING COLLEGE INTEREST

Miller has been coaching 42 years, including the last 17 at FCC. In his time at FCC, he’s never had a more highly recruited player than Hubbard.

Some word was out on Hubbard when he arrived at FCC after his one year in Odessa. But things really took off in January when Miller had a conversation with a friend of his, Jerry Mullen.

Mullen, who runs a junior college basketball scouting service, called Miller to check on Hubbard’s recruiting.

“I said he’s getting good and I think he can play at a high level,” Miller said.

That was enough for Mullen to bump Hubbard’s recruiting status up to being a Division I mid-major prospect. At this point, players had made their college choices known so Mullen called Hubbard the best available scoring guard in the country.

Two weeks later, Miller said his phone would not stop ringing.

By the end of the season with 10 games remaining, at least one Division I coach would be in the stands to watch Hubbard play. Among the schools in attendance were Kansas State, Rutgers, Louisville, Penn State, Nebraska and Iowa. The last three schools sent their head coaches.

Iowa got involved with Hubbard after Miller mentioned him to Bob Baroni. Baroni, who works for Anaconda Sports, which supplies FCC with its equipment, is also a friend of Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery. McCaffery had his brother come down from Philadelphia and check Hubbard out. McCaffery received a glowing report.

This season, Hubbard averaged 21 points, 11 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game and also shot 64 percent from the field in helping FCC go 24-7. For his efforts, Hubbard was named a NJCAA Division I second-team all-American while also earning all-Region XX and all-Maryland Junior College Athletic Conference honors.

“As a hoops player, they like that he’s strong, that he can score, that he can finish and get to the basket or score off a pull-up jump shot,” Miller said. “He’s a leader on the court.”

Around 70 colleges called inquiring about Hubbard and in each case Miller always made sure the coach calling was aware of Hubbard’s background.

Some colleges backed off recruiting Hubbard because of Hubbard’s background. Hubbard understood that.

“Some can’t accept my past,” Hubbard said.

Through it all, Hubbard, who carries a 3.2 GPA at FCC, has stayed focused.

“For the amount of talent he has and the way he has handled himself in the classroom and on the court and with his background, to still perform at that high level is remarkable,” Jandovitz said.

Hubbard did have an off-the-court issue in January when he was charged with misdemeanor assault. The charges, though, were dropped.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard knows he cannot change the past, but he can make the most of every opportunity to show that he’s a different person now. That transformation started while in prison.

“I think anytime you go into a situation like that, you have to grow,” said Hubbard, who is trying to get his record expunged. “I did a lot of growing up there. My focus was on being a better person.”

And now that he’s on the cusp of moving on to the next phase of his life, he couldn’t be happier.

“I’ve never been a quitter,” Hubbard said. “Once I felt like the door was open, I could take advantage of it. Why stop pursuing the dream regardless of what happened in the past?”