Joe Gross is not sure where he is going to be this morning, when the Maryland state high school golf tournament begins at the University of Maryland Golf Course. But he knows where he should be.
"It's not going to be easy, because I should be there to defend my title," said Gross, a three-time All-Met who won the Maryland 4A/3A championship as a freshman in 2001 and as a junior last fall. "That was the whole reason why I wanted to play high school golf this year."
Joe Gross, right, a two-time Maryland golf champion, is off the La Plata high school team and no longer enrolled at the school after a year that included a stroke suffered by his father Joe Sr., left.
(Katherine Frey - The Washington Post)
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But Gross's golf plans have been derailed by a series of events that began with his father suffering a stroke two days before he won the state tournament last year and was followed by behavior that led to his dismissal from the La Plata High golf team and his eventual departure from the school.
Gross, a three-time All-Met who today could have become the first boys' player in Maryland history to win three individual state championships and was being considered for a golf scholarship, all but quit the sport and is now home-schooled.
Joe Gross Sr. taught his son golf and was his only coach, but since the stroke he has been unable to accompany his son on the course or drive him to faraway tournaments. The son stopped playing junior tournaments and at one point went six months without picking up a club.
"Part of his identity and refuge was taken away," said Mike Meiser, La Plata's golf coach. "He was looking at some places that were scary to him. It concerned me. He looked like a lost puppy looking for a place to fit in."
Said Sharon Gross, Joe's mother: "He wasn't able to cope with it. It put Joseph into a tailspin. My only alternative was to get him home-schooled. It was an ordeal. . . . I really don't know what the future's going to hold for Joseph at this point."
It once held a world of promise.
"Collegiately, he'd be really good," said Bob Baker, president of the Plantations Junior Golf Tour, on which Gross played during winter and spring weekends. "When his name went on the [leader] board, that'd eliminate a lot of kids. They'd just say, 'Oh no, there's Joe.' Kind of like how you look at PGA boards when Tiger's name goes up. You eliminate half the field."
The elder Gross -- who served as president and chief financial officer for Washington Savings Bank before the stroke -- struggled to recover. His speech was seriously affected for three or four months, according to the family. After his speech recovered, he began to struggle with ulcers. Four months after that, doctors found a spot on his right lung, which they believe is scar tissue, but are not certain. They also found a growth on his liver, but his wife said they hope it is just a cyst. Gross Sr. was already taking medication for high blood pressure and depression.
The family's plan to build a new house was put on hold, as was most everything else, as Sharon Gross tended to the homebound father.
Joe Gross Jr. played in only one event this season for La Plata before he was kicked off the team. Gross would leave his cell phone on during school -- in case of an emergency call from home, he said -- and one day last month it rang during class. It was a friend calling, and that broke school rules, earning Gross a one-day suspension.
A couple of weeks later, Gross said he "just wasn't feeling right" and left school early without permission. That earned him another one-day suspension.
Two suspensions in Charles County Public Schools warrant dismissal from a sports team for the current season. "I didn't read the [athletic] handbook closely," Gross said sheepishly.
