A season after being kicked off the team, Heights’ Curtis Profit cashing in on second chance

Filled tables crowded the venue at the Heights boys basketball banquet last spring, but one toward the back of the room was left alone except for a kid who was no longer on the roster.

Curtis Profit was kicked off the Falcons’ team after what coach Joe Auer called “a character issue in the pursuit of academic success” — he missed study halls and practices, Auer said. But at the end of the season, Profit was there at the banquet, keeping to himself and hoping for a second chance.

He has earned it.

Auer said he noticed Profit at the banquet. He thought his uninvited attendance was strange, but he didn’t make anything of it. He didn’t talk to Profit that night, but he was impressed, and he remembered.

Profit said there was a time when he didn’t want to go.

“But that other feeling of a connection and still becoming a family, it just told me to go,” Profit said. “I wasn’t considering myself that varsity player, but I was still a player in the Heights family.”

A few weeks later, Auer had his team in the gym for the start of offseason workouts. Profit showed up unannounced again.

Auer told him he couldn’t compete on the summer league team, but when play started a couple of weeks after that, Profit showed up. He wasn’t pouting about not being let back on the court; he was cheering.

Auer said most kids in Profit’s situation would have transferred to find another opportunity to play, but Profit wanted to be part of Heights’ program, not any other school’s.

“I thought, ‘You know what, this kid is really determined,’ ” Auer said. “ ‘He’s a teenager who wants to reinvent himself, and he’s shown me three different instances. We’d better give him another opportunity.’ ”

He was added to the summer league roster after the second game.

“I just tried to hold my smile in,” Profit said. “I didn’t really expect him to let me play, but then again, I kept shoes in the car.”

Profit will admit his mistakes when asked about them, and though Auer said some criticized him for kicking his player off the team for what others might see as a small incident, Profit learned from it.

He dedicated himself to his academics. He wasn’t trying to be the jokester anymore. And he saw the connection between school and sports.

“I just threw that clown stuff away, that lazy feeling or falling asleep in class,” Profit said.

Profit said he focuses on what he is doing when he is by himself, perfecting what he does while he is alone and translating that everywhere else.

He said he goes to sleep about 9:30 p.m., wakes up early and takes his love for basketball and funnels it into his classes.

“I should have the champion mode of staying up from 7:50 (a.m.) to 3:30 (p.m.),” Profit said.

Saturday night, Profit stepped up to the free-throw line four times with his second shot at Heights staring back at him. The Falcons clung to a narrow lead against Maize South in the AV-CTL/GWAL Challenge after the Mavericks had chipped away at an 18-point deficit.

Four times, Profit put his right foot to the line with every eye in Koch Arena either hoping he scored or didn’t. Four times, he hit as Heights went on to win 66-62. Profit said he wanted those shots.

“Those are easy buckets,” he said.

The road has been curved for Profit, but he has made his mark in the 2017-18 season. Pegged as a distributing point guard, he averages 8.4 points and posted a 16-point night in the challenge, tying a team-high and setting his season-best.

Heights holds the best record in the City League at 8-1. Next up for the Falcons is a trip to Dodge City for the Tournament of Champions. They will open against Leavenworth at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, when Profit will try to keep his success rolling.

Profit credited his success to his self-reinvention. He wouldn’t have scored four straight times from the free throw line if he hadn’t put school first, he said.

And his journey is one that even impressed the City League’s winningest coach.

“I give a lot of credit to our program,” Auer said. “We’ve always believed in him.”

“We’re never gonna short-change discipline. It’s about the long-term, lifetime development, and Curtis is a great story.”

This story was originally published January 17, 2018 at 4:11 PM with the headline "A season after being kicked off the team, Heights’ Curtis Profit cashing in on second chance."