A D.C. youth basketball power broker served his time. Now he wants back in the game.

What happened

The New York Times Magazine has published a profile of Curtis Malone, co-founder of the D.C. Assault youth basketball program, titled “The Rise, Fall and Rise of Curtis Malone, D.C. Basketball Power Broker.” According to the Times, Malone once ran a basketball powerhouse in Washington before going to prison for drug dealing. Now, the Times reported, he wants back in the game.

CBS Sports reported in May 2014 that Malone was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison after pleading guilty that March to drug conspiracy charges, and that he was no longer running the program day to day by then. In a statement quoted by CBS Sports, then U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen said that with the sentence Malone “becomes a cautionary tale.”

According to an April 2026 account from the D.C. Public Library, Malone co-founded D.C. Assault in 1993, and the program helped more than 200 young men earn full college scholarships. The library reported that he served seven years in federal prison and has since written a memoir, Duplicity: Basketball, Drugs, and My Double Life. At a library talk, Malone recalled two former players seeing him in shackles at the D.C. jail and asking, “Coach, what are you doing here?” the library reported.

Asked whether he would make the same choices, Malone said, “No. I definitely don’t think I made the right decision,” according to the library, then added, “That’s the duplicity. Because with that decision, you helped out a lot of folks.” He also said, “I did bad things, but I don’t believe I was a bad person,” the library reported. The library said the program has been rebooted, which former player Chris Wright called “DC Assault 2.0.”

Our reflection

Start in that jail hallway. Two young men had heard this coach tell them to stay out of trouble, and now they were looking at him in shackles. They had to rethink a man they had built part of their lives around. Behind them are people who rarely make a sports story: the neighborhoods where the drugs landed.

Malone’s own word for it is duplicity, and he deserves credit for saying it out loud. Listen to the second half of his answer, though: with that decision, you helped out a lot of folks. Most of us carry a version of that sentence. The shortcut at work that paid for something good. The hidden habit we excuse because the public work is going well. Jesus does not grade on that curve. He said what defiles a person comes from inside (Mark 7:20 to 23), so the distance between doing bad things and needing a new heart is shorter than any of us would like. Hard news. Also the only news that leads anywhere.

Luke tells of a man who got rich off his own people. Zacchaeus collected for Rome and padded the bill, and Jericho knew it. Jesus invited himself to dinner before Zacchaeus had changed a thing. Grace came first. Then, at his own table, Zacchaeus stood and did the math on his sin out loud: half his goods to the poor, fourfold to anyone he had cheated. In the Gospels, restoration runs back to God and back toward the people who were hurt.

Who gets to coach again

We are not Malone’s judge, and a changed life shows its fruit over years. Two quick answers both fail. One says a record disqualifies a man for good, which would have sidelined Peter, who denied Jesus three times and was then told beside a charcoal fire to feed his sheep. The other says talent and connections are enough, and that is exactly how a double life grows: a powerful man around kids with nobody close enough to ask hard questions. Even restored Peter got corrected to his face by Paul years later (Galatians 2:11).

So the test is practical. A man coming home who works with young people needs other adults beside him who know his whole story and have permission to check him, and families should hear that story from him directly. Told straight, his testimony can reach a young man a brochure never will. I have watched men like that come home and lead. It is why We The Revolt stays beside young people for twelve months after release, when the risk is highest and support usually ends.

Somewhere near you, a young man coming home needs a grown man to show up on a Tuesday. Start with the steps below.

Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

Luke 19:8

Source: The New York Times, “The Rise, Fall and Rise of Curtis Malone, D.C. Basketball Power Broker”