I Was Officer Ben Fields' Basketball Coach. How Do I Reconcile My Friend With His Actions?

On the morning of Oct. 27, I entered into my usual morning routine — catching the opening statements of Good Morning America. One story teaser especially caught my attention: “South Carolina deputy caught on camera flipping over a black student’s desk and tossing her across the classroom.”

Here we go again, I thought, another law enforcement officer, yet again mistreating another black person in America. When will it ever end? I can’t take this anymore!

My wife Staci said, “I wonder if that is Ben?”

I flinched, heart sinking. I knew an officer there named Ben Fields.

“Ben Fields,” said the anchor.

My stomach nervously turned, leaving a memorable physiological imprint. This news created an existential crisis within me.

I am a passionate advocate of the Black Lives Matter movement. As a university administrator, I wore a Trayvon Martin hoodie to work the day after his death. I am one who is appalled by the more visible recent list of what has appeared to be unwarranted deaths of blacks at the hands of American law enforcement. I am one who constantly is experiencing an inner metacognitive rage. I am an angry black man in America.

But this police officer, this white aggressor, was my friend.

I had coached Ben on the basketball team for two years in Kansas. When he graduated and moved to Columbia, S.C., he had reported his excitement in his new role as a school resource officer. He played with my children when they were young. My family stopped in to visit him in Columbia on vacation.

Ben — the 18-year-old with the biggest of hearts, who cared deeply about people, who often worked alongside his family leading an inner city homeless mission — was now, immediately, nationally judged as a bigoted, violent, white police officer, his name added to the long and growing list of racist public servants.

I picked up my phone and texted Ben. I told him I was thinking of him, and that I loved him. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help.

He responded immediately, thanking me, saying he was OK and that he was receiving a lot of support. My phone began to ring as his teammates contacted me, asking if I had heard the news and if he was OK. A black former player named Arnold McCrary, who played with Ben, reached out with the following message that I felt captured the juxtaposition of the predicament in which I found myself. McCrary wrote:

“It’s interesting how all these situations involving black folks and the police had me feeling a certain way until now. To actually know the officer on such a personal level really brings you down a couple notches.

You and I hold similar views on systematic injustices, specifically police brutality. I remember back in college how you were one of a few making it a point to highlight inequalities that “minorities” deal with day to day. Now here we are with Ben, my brother, in this mix of the madness.

Being black I’m sure you’re torn on the issue, as I am, not to mention having daughters of your own. You know like I know that the guy has the BIGGEST heart. We got into it on the court, during practice, a few times but I knew he had my back more so then any of the other guys. It’s weird but at least I know the situation wasn’t racially motivated although I have read opinions of some who have said otherwise.

I wish I knew more about what he was thinking but with him being investigated I’m sure there is little he can say. Last time you and I spoke I was telling you about how Ben was supportive of me when I got into that fight in the dorm and the police came. We became a lot closer after that and he told me about the birth mark on his face. He said he didn’t know what it felt like to be black but he knew what it was like to have people look at you and treat you a certain way because of how he looked. The dude had tears in his eyes, I’ll never forget. That’s when I realized how passionate he was. I always kept that to myself.

Man, I’m not sure how he saw the situation that day but I know he is nowhere near as bad as what I’ve read and heard in the media. I talked to a couple of the guys and they feel the same. I haven’t responded to anything because I don’t know how to explain who he is to people without undermining the feelings of the girl and others who find themselves at odds with law enforcement. It’s like you have to choose a side.

I’m trying to understand how to know him as we do and make sense of the video.”

So am I, my brother. I remain deeply disturbed by the visual of the small, black girl being tossed across the classroom by a “man” in a police uniform. Intellectually, I am aware that what appears to be an act of senseless violence is yet another contribution to a mountain of overwhelming evidence that black lives do not matter in our society. But I also know Ben as a loving human being, filled with a deep sense of compassion and justice. How do I reconcile the two?

I must step back and look more closely at the roots of his behavior. What led him to such force? Was it a trained response? Was there a personal antecedent? … Does it matter?

On the occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, Robert Kennedy spoke to an audience of black people in Indianapolis — one of the few major cities not to erupt in violence. Kennedy implored the audience to not react in anger at the “awful grace of God.” My friend Ben Fields is currently caught up in such a moment, and I would like to help him navigate the treacherous waters where he has suddenly found himself.

Regardless of the student’s response to him in the classroom, it did not warrant the physical assault she received, and he should say so. I hope that Ben will come to the conclusion that efforts made toward reconciliation and personal responsibility will aid in the respect garnered by a larger population and lead him to a sense of holistic peace within himself.

We each are on a perpetual search for that path to becoming who God created us to be. And sometimes when we fall down or are knocked off the path we must continue to ask — what is the path back?