Tony Wroten treated unfairly, let him back into Garfield

If he weren't a once-a-generation hoops prodigy, Tony Wroten could go to high school at Garfield, Pluto or actor Will Smith's new academy without being hassled.

If Wroten were a math whiz instead of the Next Big Thing, the Seattle School District wouldn't have hired Magnum P.I. — or maybe it was Barney Fife, considering the private investigator's goofy, inconclusive findings — to perform a stakeout at his residence.

And if we lived in a world of appropriate priorities, we could focus our attention on more pertinent academic matters rather than be presented with an unnecessary controversy.

Free Tony Wroten.

Let him play.

Let him go back to Garfield High School.

Let him be with his friends. Let him keep from missing valuable class time while fighting the school district's decision to kick him out of Garfield because he's allegedly not a Seattle resident. Let him be a 15-year-old kid, not the sacrificial basketball star of the school district's grandstanding.

How convenient it was that this investigation concluded just as the basketball season began. Why boot a kid from school in the middle of a semester? Why not wait until the end of the semester, on Jan. 23? Or why not have made a decision by Nov. 4, when the first quarter ended? The timing of the decision proves this was clearly a sports-centric decision, and it will hinder, even if it's just temporary, a young man's education.

The Wroten family has chosen to fight this decision, and therefore Tony isn't currently in school. Some argue he should hurry to another school, but enrolling elsewhere would present social and academic challenges, too. And should Wroten win his case and be allowed back into Garfield, he would be playing musical schools, which would be quite a strain.

Even though the district and the Wrotens have quibbled off and on for months about his eligibility to attend Garfield, the district could've made a more tactful decision. The handling of this issue shows the falsity of the notion that it was purely based on strict enforcement of the rules.

The most ridiculous part is that, according to what the school district has revealed, the evidence came from seven different days of surveillance over a four-week period.

The district hired a private investigator to spy on the Wrotens and deduce that Tony only kinda, sorta lived in Seattle. His father owns a home in Renton. His mother and the children have an apartment a block from Garfield. On three Fridays, the investigator saw Tony get dropped off in Seattle just before going to school. Once, on a Monday, the investigator observed the same thing.

On the three other mornings, the investigator talked only of not seeing Wroten get out of a car before school. But here's my favorite part: On one of those mornings, the investigator checked the dew marks on cars in the neighborhood to determine that the Wrotens must've parked later than the other cars on the block.

Check the dew marks. Remember that trick. If you think your spouse is cheating, check the dew marks. If you suspect your teen sneaks out of the house, check the dew marks. If you fear you're gaining weight because you drive to McDonald's every night in your sleep, check the dew marks.

After this thorough investigation of seven separate days in a four-week span, after a detailed examination of dew, it was time to uproot a kid who has done nothing worse than go to school and play basketball.

No wonder more than 100 students walked out of school and protested at the district headquarters Friday.

No wonder this "scandal" is the wackiest one in local high-school sports since the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association forced Archbishop Murphy out of the football playoffs last year because its legendary coach, Terry Ennis, died and forgot to check one of his player's physicals.

Unless the district is sitting on some damaging evidence about the Wrotens, there's not enough proof to justify terminating Tony's enrollment at Garfield. His father lives in Renton, his mother in Seattle. He's a teenager who now has the privilege of going to sleepovers at friends' houses. Seven spy sessions in 28 days — or 25 percent of a month — shouldn't discredit the rent check the family pays for that apartment or the neighbors' proclamations that Tony indeed lives in Seattle.

Sure, the family's decision to split the household to keep Tony at Garfield was one that most families wouldn't make. Sure, if Tony was allowed to continue at Garfield because his mother rents an apartment nearby, it would be an exploitation of a loophole in the rules.

But you know what? That's a choice his parents, Tony Sr. and Shirley Wroten, made to keep their son happy. Who are we to judge two parents making a decision to keep their son's quality of life intact?

If Tony Wroten weren't a 6-foot-4 guard with an explosive first step, no one would care where he went to school, including the district that has made an example of him. For certain, there are dozens of Tony Wrotens out there, skirting the rules because they love a school. They just don't have the jump shot to warrant the snooping of a P.I.

Jerry Brewer: 206-464-2277 or jbrewer@seattletimes.com.