Time to shovel some dirt on this issue, before we brush it off 22 days from now when Jonathan Holton makes what we presume to be his final court appearance.

So to review, yes, Mr. Holton made mistakes of some variety 14 months and he has a few more things to clean up in that arena before he can enroll at WVU.

And, yes, he’s also at the mercy of what many others are as one-year junior college players. It generally takes two years to get an associate degree. So he has work to do there, too, but it doesn’t sound like anything he can’t conquer.

In fact, he did a lot in between Rhode Island and Palm Beach State so that he could 1) enroll at Palm Beach State and 2) enroll at a Division I school for the 2013-14 season.

Wouldn’t you know it …

… he’s this close to having both happen, which means that before WVU and Bob Huggins researched Holton and offered a scholarship with conditions, Butch Estes researched Holton and offered him a second chance at Palm Beach State.

Palm Beach State is about an hour from where Holton was raised. Estes said he was impressed by the people surrounding Holton and reassured by their intentions.

“They really wanted to re-establish him,” Estes said.

Estes said he told Holton and his people that Estes was mindful of Holton’s past, but preferred to concentrate on the future, so long as Holton was committed to the same. That apparently worked because Estes said he later learned a lot of junior college coaches were using Holton’s past as a way to intimidate him.

“He warmed up to the fact that some schools he was looking at made a big deal out of his past while we took the approach that, ‘Hey, Jonathan you made a mistake, but that’s behind you. This is an opportunity to go forward. We’re not looking at the past. We’re focused on the future,'” Estes said. “He appreciated that. There were other people who tried to make him feel bad about what happened. Other coaches gave him the, ‘You better do what I say. This is your last chance.'”

Holton needed to complete some academic work so he could play for Estes. As Horton worked toward eligibility, Estes did his homework, too.

“We did all the background checks and I was assured all of the things from his past would be resolved,” Estes said. “Talking extensively with the people in his background, I got nothing but good vibes about taking the chance to help him.”