RICHMOND, Va. – VCU was blown out by George Mason less than three weeks ago in the second game of a stretch of four losses in five games to end the regular season. With a semifinal game against the Patriots beckoning, Jamie Skeen was asked about playing them again and described it as “our chance to redeem ourselves.” Redemption is a subject he knows something he knows a little about, because Jamie Skeen’s time at VCU is a story of just that.
Anytime a player transfers, they come to their second school with something to prove. It might be that they can play at a certain level, it might be that they had a bad situation, or it might be that they needed a change of scenery to reach their potential. Head coach Shaka Smart thinks Skeen’s main goal has been simply to make it work at VCU. Skeen transferred from Wake Forest after he was suspended for a semester due to a violation of the school’s academic policy. He would have had to file an appeal to be readmitted to the university, but opted not to do it.
That wasn’t the first time he faced some adversity in college, and it certainly hasn’t been the end of it.
The soft-spoken forward grew up in Charlotte and has an athletic background. His parents met while at Fayetteville State, where his father played football and his mother was a cheerleader. He grew up right in ACC country and was recruited by several ACC schools out of high school. Included was the school he dreamed of attending and his father’s favorite school, North Carolina, but that wasn’t the one he would ultimately choose. He felt he would fit better at Wake Forest and went there instead.
At that point, life seemed good. He started 24 games as a freshman, then saw his numbers drop as a sophomore as his role changed. But he was going to school close to home, in the conference he grew up watching and one that a lot of players dream of playing in.
Then came his junior year. Then came what changed things: the suspension.
By this time, Skeen was already on his second coach, as Skip Prosser tragically passed away in July before his sophomore year. That shook up a lot of people, but especially at Wake Forest. He chose VCU when he opted to transfer in large part because Anthony Grant, the head coach at the time, was clearly a rising coach. He saw that VCU was winning in the CAA and that he could play for a big-time coach.
Skeen enrolled at the school and sat out, but it wasn’t easy and then he was hit again. It was difficult enough just to sit out, but he also watched the Rams win a CAA title while he had to sit, something he would like to have been a part of. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Grant left to take the head coaching job at Alabama. Now the coach he transferred to the school with the idea he would play for was gone. He didn’t take it well at first.
It’s safe to say he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he admits he didn’t shake Grant’s hand after it happened. And with the benefit of hindsight, he knows he wouldn’t do it again and says if he ever sees Grant, he would shake his hand. He knows it was a knee-jerk reaction on his part.
“I can’t get mad at him for that,” said the senior forward. “It was a decision he had to make. It was almost selfish of me to be upset about it.”
Last season, life finally began to come back to something resembling normal as he played for his fourth coach in Smart. But there was unquestionably some rust at first, and understandably so. When he became eligible in December of last season, he had not played in a live game in almost two years, and there’s a difference between practice speed and game speed. He started 22 games and put up decent numbers with a career-best 8.1 points per game and 4.5 rebounds while shooting almost 52 percent from the field.
This season, the path to redemption has continued. Skeen earned second team All-CAA honors this season with career highs in scoring (15.1 points per game), rebounding (7.6) and field goal percentage (over 52 percent). And as if that’s not enough, on Saturday he scored the game-winning basket as time expired as the Rams advanced to the semifinals of the CAA Tournament, capping off a game-high 24-point effort.
Not only were the coaches happy for the obvious reason of winning the game, but they were happy for the young man that got the winning basket. The staff raves about Skeen as a young man, describing him as very down to earth and easy to get along with. They’ll tell you that you won’t find a better young man on a team full of high-character young men. Smart says he has never had the sense that what happened at Wake Forest matters to Skeen, that the senior has been focused on what is in front of him. He says Skeen can remember just about anything, but has moved on to the point where he doesn’t look back at what happened.
On Sunday, the Rams will look to advance to the championship game at the expense of the same Patriots who knocked them off at the beginning of the season-ending slump. Whether or not the team redeems itself with a win, Jamie Skeen has redeemed himself by having a fine career and growing into a good young man. No one will feel the redemption more than he will.
