16 Again? Coaches Swear Former B-Baller is Back on the Court

SoFla high school standout goes back to school in Texas to play, coaches claim

Many a former high school athlete would love to go back in time and play the games of their youth all over again, but aging and the passage of time generally keep those dreams from becoming reality.

But former Dillard basketball standout Guerdwich Montimere may have found a way to go back to the future.

A couple of South Florida coaches swear they saw the 22-year-old Montimere playing high school basketball in Odessa, Texas, last month under the name Jerry Joseph, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

"I'm 100 percent sure," Boyd Anderson assistant coach Cedric Smith said. "I would bet my paycheck."

Smith and coach Louis Vives of the South Florida Elite insist they saw the 2007 graduate at an Arkansas tournament in April, where he was posing as a high school sophomore.

"He played in and around our organization for three, four years," Vives told the Sun-Sentinel. "He's grown up with us and you know these kids. You just know them. His demeanor, the way he walks, the way he was talking, everything is the same."

Vives approached Joseph at last month's tournament, calling him Guerdwich.

"He acknowledged me like he didn't know me," Vives said.

Officials at Joseph's school, Permian High, said they referred the issue to Immigration and Customs agents who investigated and found that Montimere and Joseph were two different people. They did find that Joseph, who they concluded is 16, is in the U.S. illegally.

Despite ICE's finding the debate over whether Joseph is a talented con man or just a talented young basketball star hasn't been settled enough for the South Florida coaches.

"We saw him. We've known Guerdwich since he was in seventh or eighth grade," Smith said. "The mannerisms were him. It doesn't make sense. They have to do more investigations for me."

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