Abby Tabor / Houma Courier

Nicholls State University head basketball coach J. P. Piper talks with player Kyle Ford in Stopher Gymnasium Wednesday night during the NSU Colonels-Huston Tillotson Ram basketball game.

THIBODAUX — A former Nicholls State University assistant coach and a former basketball player have accused men’s coach J.P. Piper of wrongfully dismissing them from the team due to their race.

Piper, contacted by telephone Friday, refused to comment on the matter, as have all university officials.

Calls to Nicholls President Stephen Hulbert and Athletics Director Rob Bernardi were also met with refusals to discuss the allegations.

Piper has not been accused of breaking any laws, and he remains a coach in good standing.

Terrence Jones, an assistant coach under Piper from 2006-07, and Aaron Scott, a player from 2005-07, allege that Piper discriminated against them and other black former players and assistant coaches while they were on the team.

Burnell Tolbert, president of the Lafourche Parish branch of the NAACP, said he has been contacted by Jones and former Nicholls basketball players who claim they were discriminated against by Piper.

In response, Tolbert said the local NAACP is preparing a letter to inform the NCAA about Piper’s actions toward former black players.

In reaction to an Oct. 22 article on former Nicholls player Gil Verner, another black former player who claimed Piper mishandled his scholarship and dismissed him from the team, both Jones and Scott called The Courier and the Daily Comet offices to give their reasons for their departures. Jones, Scott and Tolbert did separate telephone interviews for this story.

“The reason why I’m coming forward with it is because I think it is beneficial for people in society to know what he’s doing because obviously the way he treated me didn’t affect him at all,” Jones said, referring to Piper. “He still continues to treat other black players the same way, and it needs to stop. Nicholls State does not need that.”

The university’s only authorized statement on the matter was released Dec. 2 by the University Relations Department.

“Nicholls State University is an equal opportunity employer, and its decisions are made in such a way as to further the principle of equal employment opportunity,” the statement reads. “All matters related to personnel actions regarding current and former employees are confidential.”

WAS RACE A FACTOR?

During Piper’s five-year tenure as Nicholls’ basketball coach, Jones said, five former black players – Scott, Verner, Kevin Goffney, James Dixon and Shawn King – were released from their scholarships before their athletic eligibility at the school ended.

Jones said he was present at meetings concerning those athletes and has firsthand knowledge of Piper’s dealings with them.

Jones said Piper told each of the players that they had to either transfer to another school or return to Nicholls and pay their own tuition.

Scott, Goffney, Dixon and King elected to transfer to other colleges, Jones said.

Repeated attempts throughout November and December to contact Goffney, Dixon and King for this story were unsuccessful.

Verner, a former Assumption High standout, appealed Piper’s decision in July and later won the right to keep his scholarship. Race, he said, was one of the factors cited in his appeal. He continues to attend Nicholls as a student but cannot participate on the basketball team. He plans to transfer to another school, he said, and complete his final year of athletic eligibility.

Verner said white players had indeed been released from the team in the past by Piper but that the way that was done was different. He said the white players were given the option to transfer, leave on their own terms or rejoin the team.

The same choices, he said, were not given to black players.

Scott, a former H.L. Bourgeois High standout, said Piper often gave preferential treatment to the white players during practices and games.

“He played favorites,” Scott said. “Anything and everything they would do at practice or in games, he would always compliment them. When we would do good stuff, he wouldn’t compliment us as much as he did the other players. When we did something wrong, he would yell at us more than he did the others.”

Jones said that during his time as an assistant coach, Piper made the practice atmosphere uncomfortable for the players. He said instead of teaching the players, Piper would often talk down to them.

“He can only coach players that are like he is,” Jones said. “Any kid that comes from a different background, he can’t coach that type of player. He can’t identify with them and looks down on them if they can’t do a certain thing or fit his system.”

Tolbert said he received a complaint from a black former Nicholls player in 2007 about Piper.

Attempts to discuss that with Piper or other school officials, Tolbert said, were not successful.

“Coach Piper never would meet with us,” Tolbert said. “I find that funny because if you’re true and you’re fair on what you’re doing and saying to these players, then I think he would have met with us.”

Currently, a majority of the 2008-09 Nicholls roster – nine out of 16 players – is black. The team also has one black assistant coach, Kevin Johnson. Jones said Johnson, in his second season, was hired to replace him after his departure in 2007.

Permission to talk with Johnson, as with other employees at the school, was refused by Nicholls officials.

WHO IS COACH PIPER?

Before coming to Nicholls, Piper, a native of Baton Rouge, was an assistant coach at The Dunham School there. He guided the Tigers to a Class-1A state championship in 1998 and a Class-1A state runner-up in 1999. In 1999, he was named the Class-1A Coach of the Year and was selected to coach the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s East All-Star team.

Piper, who received an undergraduate degree from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and a master’s degree from LSU, also served as principal at Dunham for three years and president of the Louisiana High School Basketball Coaches Association for two years.

After eight years at Dunham, Piper moved to East Ascension High, where he served as an assistant coach for two seasons.

Jones, a Gonzales native, said he first met Piper when he was a 15-year-old student attending East Ascension.

Jones said Piper served as a freshman coach at East Ascension. Since he played varsity basketball for four years at East Ascension, Jones said he was never on a team coached by Piper. But Jones said Piper had an early influence on his basketball career.

“He helped me out personally with a lot of stuff as a basketball player and with work ethic,” Jones said. “At the time, he was more like a mentor to a certain degree.”

Jones said Piper didn’t show any signs of racial bias at that time.

Piper joined the Nicholls men’s basketball team as an assistant coach under then-coach Ricky Blanton in 2001. He served the 2002-04 seasons in the position before being named head coach when Blanton was fired due to an academic scandal involving the basketball team in 2004.

Piper has led the Colonels to a 37-85 overall record with no appearances in the Southland Conference tournament.

The 42-year-old Piper is married to Renee Denson Piper, director of University Relations at Nicholls. They reside in Thibodaux and have two young children.

GOING TO NICHOLLS

After playing two years at East Tennessee State, where he helped guide the Buccaneers to the 2004 NCAA tournament, Scott transferred to Nicholls for the 2005-06 season to be closer to home and played the 2006-07 season.

When former Nicholls player Stefan Blaszczynski went down with an ankle injury earlier that season, Scott said his minutes and point totals increased. In the Colonels’ first six games, Scott was second on the team in scoring with 16.5 points per game. Along with Adonis Gray, another black player, Scott racked up big numbers at the season’s start.

“Coach Piper let us score, and he didn’t have no problem with that,” Scott said.

In Nicholls’ seventh game that season, Blaszczynski, a native of Australia, returned, and Scott said he noticed a change in the coach.

“When Stefan came back, then Adonis and I went out the picture,” Scott said. “He didn’t want us to shoot the ball. He told us to pass it to the Australian players so they could shoot. We couldn’t shoot 3-pointers. He let other people shoot but not us. We had to do the dirty work while other people got to shoot. I couldn’t believe he was doing that.”

Scott had another setback in the Colonels’ 13th game, against Vanderbilt. He suffered a knee injury, which required surgery.

Scott said the injury was serious enough for him to sit out the remainder of the season. But he said Piper instructed him to come back or he would lose an entire year of eligibility. After having knee surgery in January 2007, Scott said he missed the rest of the season.

“He wanted me to come back and play,” Scott said. “I knew I could’ve had a medical (redshirt), ... but he wouldn’t give it to me.”

If an athlete misses a significant number of games due to an injury, he can appeal to regain that year of eligibility.

Jones said Piper should have allowed Scott to sit out the season.

“If it were anyone else that had the situation Aaron had, Coach Piper would have told them ... not to come back to play,” Jones said. “If he really cared about Aaron’s future and career, he would have let him.”

After the season, when it was time for the players to meet with the coaches for scholarship renewals, Scott said Piper called him into his office and told him he was dismissed from the team.

“He said I wasn’t a good fit for the program and that I wasn’t the player or the person that he expected me to be,” Scott said.

Before that meeting, Scott, who averaged 8.6 points and 3.8 rebounds per game at Nicholls, said Piper never mentioned he was at risk of losing his scholarship. He said Piper misled and used him throughout his playing career at Nicholls.

“At the beginning of the season and throughout the whole year, he told me that I was doing a good job and that I was a big part of the program,” Scott said, “and when he cut me at the end of that season, he said he only mentioned that to motivate me.”

At the time, Scott said he didn’t tell anyone outside the Nicholls basketball program what was going on.

“I was scared at first because I thought no one would care about my story after what happened to all the other players and coaches that had left the team,” Scott said. “He had so much power that he would have overruled it anyway. Everybody else on the team was scared to come out and talk about what was happening at the time, so why would they believe just me?”

After Verner decided to come out with his side of the story in October, then Scott wanted to do so, as well.

Scott said he later transferred to Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth.

But that wasn’t Scott’s last run-in with Piper.

When the Nicholls played at Texas-Arlington last season, Scott said he went to watch his old team play.

Verner said Piper was aware that Scott was in the stands.

Piper “told us that Aaron was going to be watching the game and that he quit on us and didn’t want to be at Nicholls anymore,” Verner said. “We all know that wasn’t true and that it was a lie. We all knew the real reason.”

Scott said he was not upset by Piper’s purported comments.

“I really wanted to play for Nicholls, but I’m glad coach Piper did what he did,” Scott said. “I didn’t need him. I went somewhere else and I found myself and helped another team be successful.”

WORKING WITH PIPER

Jones said Piper hired him as an assistant coach at Nicholls before the 2006-07 season.

“He told me that it would be a great opportunity,” Jones said. “He told me that I would have a role in the recruiting and player development. He also told me he was going to teach me how to break down game film and stuff like that.”

But Jones said things quickly changed after he started working at Nicholls.

“As soon as I got on campus, he treated me unfairly,” he said.

Jones said he is convinced that the only reason he was hired at all was to fulfill the university’s diversity desires.

“All I did was baby-sit the players and schedule road trips,” he said.

Jones said Piper often chastised him in front of the players and spoke down to him whenever he gave an opinion.

“Whenever I tried to talk to him, he acted like he didn’t want me to talk to him,” Jones said. “It would always be as if I was bothering him. He would get upset, yell and curse me out. It was always that way. And he never treated or talked to the other two assistant coaches, who both were white, like that.”

Uncomfortable with the working situation, Jones said he met with Piper and they agreed that he would leave when his one-year contract expired.

But Jones said that offer didn’t hold up long. With two months left on his contract, Jones said Piper wanted to replace him with another coach “as soon as possible.”

He said Piper told him, “either you resign or I’ll fire you.”

Upset with the ultimatum, Jones contacted Tolbert. Jones said he only went to the NAACP because he couldn’t afford a lawyer and that any other options would have taken too long to complete.

“It was a situation where I needed (the NAACP) to come in,” Jones said. “It was a case that involved racial discrimination, so that was a case they could handle, and I needed representation.”

In March 2007, Jones said the NAACP requested a meeting with Piper and Bernardi. He said Bernardi agreed to meet but refused to let Piper attend.

At the meeting, Tolbert said, the NAACP officials went over Jones’ letter of resignation, which alleged incidents of racial discrimination.

Tolbert said the NAACP demanded that Nicholls accept Jones’ letter of resignation, pay the two months left on his contract and hire another black assistant coach.

Tolbert said Bernardi agreed to the terms only if Jones and the NAACP promised not to inform the public about the incident, a condition to which Tolbert and Jones said they agreed.

At this point, however, Tolbert has no desire to keep the allegations quiet.

Beyond the planned letter to the NCAA, Tolbert has not disclosed any other action the organization may take or legal channels that Jones or Scott might explore.

Tolbert said the NAACP is continuing to investigate the allegations and that the civil-rights group is contacting former and current players for more insight.

“It’s a shame that these things are happening,” Tolbert said. “These things will continue to happen until people step up and do something about it.”