Foul Trouble

In the world of Foul Trouble, basketball players are valued for how much attention they can bring to the game. Star players like Terrell who make impressive shots are valued more highly than players like Danny, whose performance on the court may be less impressive but whose collaborative spirit helps to keep their team functioning like a well-oiled machine. Danny’s value to the team is just as high as Terrell’s, but because his perceived value is not as high as Terrell’s, he is treated differently and shunted aside, and this ongoing dynamic demonstrates the unfair nature of value judgments.

Foul Trouble examines the concept of fairness from several different angles, particularly when it comes to the challenge of evaluating athletes of varying skill levels. Throughout the novel, the two protagonists receive different treatment from many individuals and institutions, and this inequity reveals the fact that Terrell’s perceived value is much higher, and the crowd of recruiters overlooks and dismisses Danny after judging him by a very narrow-minded set of standards.

From the beginning of the novel, Danny and Terrell receive very different treatment from the press, colleges, and brand representatives who flock to Terrell’s all-star status with the intent to capitalize on his talent. By contrast, Danny’s mid-list status garners hardly any attention unless recruiters believe that they can use him to influence Terrell. Initially, this dynamic puts severe strain on Danny and Terrell’s friendship, for even though Danny knows he isn’t at Terrell’s level, he still feels abandoned. For Terrell, this attention inflates his ego and causes him to push Danny aside so that he can bask in the special treatment. When Terrell and Danny are both benched after Terrell gets high and Danny attempts to cover for him, both boys realize that they must support each other and avoid letting other people drive a wedge between them. Danny wants to help Terrell because friends help each other, and Terrell now understands that his status and actions could bring unfair consequences to Danny.

As the novel unfolds, the boys soon learn that perceived value can change in an instant. This harsh truth is demonstrated when Terrell sustains a mild concussion that prevents him from playing basketball for at least a few weeks. While Terrell is devastated and fears what will happen to his future if he is ever permanently prevented from playing, the unforeseen break in his activities gives him some much-needed clarity and forces him to realize how little he matters to the attention-seekers, who are only interested in exploiting his talent for their own benefit. While Terrell is off the court, most of the colleges and all of the brands stop communicating with him and only reestablish contact when he resumes playing basketball. In addition, hardly any reporters come to his team’s practices or games when Terrell is not there to draw attention. The sudden silence from these endless hangers-on is reminiscent of how Omar Whytlaw also lost attention after his injury. Together, these two situations represent how powerfully a person’s perceived value dictates the special treatment they receive. With his basketball future temporarily uncertain, Terrell becomes far less important to people who wish to profit from his skill. Thus, for the first time, Terrell experiences the sense of abandonment that Danny and other non-star players are already familiar with, and he realizes how profoundly his life has changed as a result of an unfair shift in his perceived value from external sources of validation.

The unscrupulous nature of many authority figures also complicates the issue of playing by the rules, for Danny and Terrell soon realize that even the rule-makers are willfully bending and breaking the rules. For example, when Danny, Michael, Terrell, and Alex are confronted by the NCAA for suspected rule-breaking, Danny is questioned far more closely than the other three, who are all star players. This blatant inequality makes Danny realize that the NCAA rules “might exist for someone like him or possibly even for Alex. But for Terrell Jamerson, Omar Whitelaw, and Michael Jordan, they didn’t” (110). As a mid-list player, Danny faces a much greater threat from the punitive measures of the NCAA. Whereas players like Terrell are shielded by their talent and perceived value to the NCAA, Danny’s skill is not enough to garner such a high level of attention. Thus, he is viewed as expendable by the NCAA—someone who can take the blame for breaking the rules so that a player like Terrell can avoid similar consequences.