A Brief Review Of The Consequences Of The Memphis Basketball Program’s Actions

Here's the thing about academic requirements for these 1 and done players. If you're only spending 1 year at college, the 2nd semester of which you're going to be flying around and playing basketball while everyone else is taking mid-terms, why should you be required to put on this charade of "learning?"

Does Memphis or the NCAA have required classes that these 1 year wonders must take? If not, Derrick Rose is just wasting time (and money) taking pointless 100-level classes he probably never attended, and barely had to study for. There's no declared major, no guidelines for classes, he's just looking and acting like a student because....that's the way it's always been.

If Rose conned his way through 4 years of college, and earned a degree with a bullshit SAT score, now that's something I can't defend. Cheating his way to school because it's the best way to keep a high draft stock is just taking advantage of a broken system. College athletics are for people who actually need the education, school should not be allowed to dole out scholarships to kids who clearly have no interest/incentive to study.

I agree with Khandor in most respects (I wouldnt have been able to go to college without my SAT score). I'm a closet Memphis fan (I used to fly a lot between Dallas and Memphis and the team was always on the flight), but I, like Khandor, do believe that athletes should have to meet certain basic academic requirements.

Matt,

Sorry ... just noticed this typo. Corrected as:

Personally, I do not believe that SAT scores should be used as admittance criteria for college, in the first place.

Typing has never been a strength of mine.

Matt,

---------------------------------
re: "Academic fraud in an athlete’s case doesn’t bother me, not in this day and age."
---------------------------------

IMO, this too is unfortunate.

Matt,

Again, I'm forced to disagree with your specific take here.

Is the NCAA Div I Men's Basketball system corrupt?

For sure, and in a monumental gargantuan way.

The fact is, however ... I, personally, know many many individuals who care a great deal about the academic well being of the students in their charge who just happen to be varsity athletes, as well.

Matt,

A high horse?

Having someone else write your entrance test for you is something which you condone?

Personally, I do not believe that SAT scores should not be used as admittance criteria for college, in the first place.

That is not the point, here, however ... is it?

Academic fraud, in this case ... at least, if it's true ... is academic fraud, regardless of the horse's height.

----------------------------------------------
re: "Everyone talks about Callipari being skeezy, but the end results of his skeeziness are talented kids getting to make the most of their skills and get paid, fans getting wins, and him making money. That’s not skeezy."
----------------------------------------------

Sorry, Matt, but I'm going to have to disagree with your specific take on this.

IMO, you are wrong about what the "end results" are in situations like this:

1. talented kids getting to make the most of their skills and get paid;
2. fans getting wins;
3. and him making money.

When this happens in an academic-based evironment ... which is what a university education is supposed to be about, rather than an overly simplistic case of "career training, at all costs" ... it's a different story, in my book.

When a different person writes your SAT for you, which is alleged to be what's happened in this instance, and your admittance to that post-secondary academic instiution is, in part, based on the score achieved on your behalf from that test, taken by someone who is not you ... it's called academic fraud, any way you slice it ... and what you and others learn from this sort of behaviour being tolerated as somehow acceptable is not what you've identified but rather that "cheating", per se, in life, is acceptable if the rewards/benefits accrued to you and others are deemed to be sufficient.

We are not talking here about the merits of the NCAA's tangled web of arcane rules, including whether or not student-athletes should get paid for their services, etc., or what the proper concomitant "punishment" should be for a coach like John Calipari, in this instance, given the prior transgressions associated with his former college programs.

What we're talking about is the possibility that Derrick Rose may have had someone else take his SAT for him, and that John Calipari, amongst others surrounding the Tigers' program, may have known about it and, therefore, condoned it, in order to be able to get this young man registered as a student in good standing at the University of Memphis, in the first place. [Please Note: I wrote "as a student", not "as a student-athlete".]

Attending university, as a student, is not supposed to be about "job training", per se. Hopefully, this is a healthy by-product of your collective experience within that environment which focuses on "education & the pursuit of learning".

Is the environment in college basketball corrupt?

Yes, it is ... on several different fronts, better left for discussion on another day.

If what's been alleged here is actually what Derrick Rose did then my sincere sympathies extend to him, and it's my belief that those responsible at the University of Memphis [who knew about it at the time] should be held accountable for allowing this type of academic fraud to have been committed, as part of their athletic program.

What bothers me about this story is that college athletes like Rose barely have to score anything on the SAT to qualify, so why not take the test himself? Is he really that dumb?

Plus, "talented kids getting to make the most of their skills and get paid, fans getting wins, and him making money. That’s not skeezy." The him making money part sounds pretty sleazy to me.