College Basketball’s Biggest Problems
I spend a fair amount of time reading opinions of other writers like myself so as to broaden my view and scope. Today I was reading Pat Fordes Minutes on Espn.com and it reminded me of something I witnessed first hand while playing in high school ball in Iowa.
Specifically I’m talking about how so many freshman are eligible to play now when this was a major issue for years. Pat talks about how students are labeled as having learning disabilities so they can take an untimed test. When i was a senior in high school I went to Cedar Rapids Washington and played with Russ Millard. Russ was being recruited by about everyone in the country and had narrowed his choices to Iowa, UConn, Arizona and Kansas. He was a great player that had great hands and could jump for someone his size. I loved playing with him because he made me look good and helped me to sign my letter of intent to play at Utah. Russ had some serious issues in the classroom however and we all knew it. He had been diagnosed with ADD (or so we were told) and had failed 2 previous attempts at passing the ACT the standard way like the rest of us. Once Russ committed to Iowa to play his college ball he was given a ‘special’ test where he sat one on one with someone to help him stay focused. He even told us that she would read the questions and answer choices to him. We laughed because of how obvious it would be to help someone in this situation by changing the inflection of your voice to give the correct answer. He didn’t have the normal time constraints either and wouldn’t you know it, he passed the test. When the results came out it was a front page story in the sports section describing how Millard had passed the test. It was great vindication for him because every team we played would chant A….C…..T with each of his foul shots and he didn’t like it.
The point is that this was happening long before it happened to Russ Millard and it’s been happening a ton since. Is it worth looking into and getting involved? Russ passed the test and was eligible to play as a freshman but more importantly he was able to get into college and gain an education. If he failed the test he may have had to go to a junior college and who knows what would’ve happened. Many kids need the chance that Russ got to pass the test to improve life but not all get it and it’s sad that basketball is an avenue that can get that to happen. For that reason the NCAA has to crack down on stuff like this because what is fair for one must be fair for all as hard as that seems.
I’ve always thought the NCAA had too much time on their hands but with Kelvin Sampson being dumb enough to commit the same infraction twice and then lie about it I’m going to open my eyes a little wider to see what else is out there. What bothers me is why Indiana would pay 750k to a coach that has a history of cheating? Fire the guy and go to court and do whatever but don’t pay a guy 750k to walk away from the program and not cause a fuss.
The NCAA has some issues and I think Indiana and Kelvin Sampson may have awakened them a little more than we all want.
