Glendora’s Lee Puts Fight Behind Him : Prep basketball: He says he wants to be known only for his work in classroom, on court.

After Brandon Lee transferred to Glendora High School from La Puente Bishop Amat last year, the only recognition he wanted was as an improving student and basketball player.

That changed last month when Lee got into a fight on the school’s campus with a skinhead and was suspended from school for two days.

“Our school policy calls for an automatic suspension for any student involved in a fight regardless of who the perpetrator was,” Glendora Principal Clay Hess said. “The general suspension time for fighting is two days because we feel that if you make an honest effort to avoid a fight, you can get out of it.”

What has bothered Lee and many others at Glendora is that many of his accomplishments on and off the court have been overlooked.

“Brandon is a very likable kid who has made the adjustment really smooth,” Glendora Coach Mike LeDuc said. “He has gotten a lot out of school with his academics and on the court.”

Lee, a 6-foot-6 senior, has become the main inside force for Glendora, averaging 16 points and eight rebounds. It is his inside play that has added a new dimension to the Tartans (27-0), who have two of the best outside shooting guards in the Southern Section--Cameron Murray, averaging 21 points, and Adam Jacobsen.

“He has really opened things up for us because we have never really had a post-up player before,” said Jacobsen, a 6-2 junior who is averaging 20 points. “With him in the lineup, we have been able to get more open jump shots.”

Lee’s emergence has helped Glendora move up to the No. 4 ranking in The Times’ Southern Section poll, but he is most proud of his work in the classroom.

After having problems academically at Bishop Amat, where he was ineligible during the final month of the basketball season a year ago, Lee has 3.0 grade average in two semesters at Glendora.

“Even though I struggled with my grades at Amat, I learned from my experience there,” said Lee, who lived with his mother in Duarte before moving in with his father in Glendora last summer.

“I realize now that I have to make sure that I put forth the effort so I don’t mess up again. A lot of my problems before was laziness, and once my grades started to drop, my confidence and self-esteem was gone. I’m determined to finish and prove that I can complete things.”

With Lee being having an impact on Glendora’s basketball program, which has reached a Southern Section division final two of the last three seasons, questions have been asked regarding his transfer.

Some claim that Lee was recruited by Glendora and that he is living in the area illegally or that he should be ineligible because of his past grades, but all charges have been investigated and dropped, according to school sources.

“There are people out there who have a problem with Glendora winning,” Lee said. “But the only reason I transferred here was because of my family situation.”

Lee did not know what to expect when he transferred to Glendora. The only person he knew was Murray, who is Lee’s distant cousin and the brother of UCLA’s Tracy Murray.

“When I first got here I thought Glendora was going to be like a Beverly Hills situation, where the kids all drove BMWs and Mercedes to school,” he said. “But then I met the people and I noticed that they weren’t like that and I was real surprised.”

Jacobsen says that many of the Glendora students helped Lee make the adjustment.

“We tried to take him in as soon as we could and make him feel welcome,” Jacobsen said. “We all liked him right away, and he was real good in trying hard to fit in.”

Even though there are only 13 blacks in a student body of 1,750 at Glendora, Lee says that it was never a problem for him to be accepted.

From the sellout crowds that watch Glendora home games to the parents of the children he coaches and officiates in the town’s youth basketball league every Saturday, Lee appears to be merely another standout player in the Tartans’ highly regarded basketball program.

“I felt like an outsider at first,” Lee said. “I just had to prove myself to be like one of the fellows like any other new transfer.”

But one Friday last month, Lee realized he is not like other Glendora transfers because he is black. It was that late afternoon when he first encountered several skinheads in the school’s parking lot, where he said they made racist remarks.

That turned out to be a prelude to the confrontation that occurred that following Tuesday, when one of the skinheads, who do not attend Glendora, returned.

“I was still upset about what happened the week before, and when the one skinhead confronted me, I just struck him,” said Lee, who sat out two league games for Glendora.

After the fight was stopped, Lee was restrained while the skinhead was chased off campus by many of the students who witnessed the incident.

Since then, the student body at Glendora has continued to rally behind Lee, and LeDuc says that what happened was an isolated incident.

“No one has really talked about it after it was over,” said LeDuc, who is in his sixth season at Glendora. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve never noticed any problems, and I haven’t since. Every place has its few people who cause problems and Glendora is just like the other places.”

Now, Lee is looking forward to attending college.

Realizing that he will probably have to attend a junior college because of his earlier grade problems, Lee is still optimistic about playing Division I college basketball.

“I would like to play ball in college so that my parents don’t have to pay for my schooling,” he said. “I want to finish up school on a good note, and if people take a good look at me and my situation, who knows, I could go Division I now.”

Next up for Lee will be Glendora’s Southern Section Division II-AA second-round playoff game tonight against Walnut (15-10).

With an undefeated season on the line, it is important for Lee to finish the basketball season strong, because he knows what it is like to not finish a season at all.