When Cameron Crowe was 22, he moved in with his parents and enrolled in high school as a student in order to research a book. Crowe was an established writer for Rolling Stone and he had worked with the administration in his plan. Both the book and the eventual movie based on it were called Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a cult classic film of the 80s.
When Sidney Bouvier Gilstrap-Portley decided to have his own fast times at Hillcrest High School in Dallas, he got no such permission from the administration, and simply claimed to be a 17-year-old Hurricane Harvey refugee in order to join the basketball team.
The Dallas Morning News reports that Gilstrap-Portley was arrested for falsifying government records when one of his former coaches from when he was actually in high school recognized him playing high school basketball seven years later.
He absolutely looks 25. This is like that episode of 30 Rock where a guy three years younger than Tracy Jordan was pretending to be his son.
Anyway, being 25 and playing basketball against a bunch of 15-year-olds gives you a considerable advantage which is how Gilstrap-Portley was named District 11-5A offensive player of the year. He lead his team to an 11-10 season which is… not great considering they had a 25-year-old on their team. I don’t know how a 25-year-old playing high school basketball doesn’t look like LeBron.
Gilstrap-Portley also had a 14-year-old girlfriend when he was posing as a student, which… why? Have you ever talked to a 14-year-old girl? They don’t have anything interesting to say, and it appears the relationship, while weird, wasn’t sexual. So it’s not even that he’s a pervert who’s attracted to 14-year-olds, he just liked hanging out with her, which makes very little sense to me.
I don’t understand the desire to go back to high school, myself. I mean, sure, you could be the big man on campus because as an adult you have actual social skills, but you’re surrounded by teenagers, who are all sociopaths, every single one. And all kids in high school want to do is not be in high school. Who would do that willingly?