04/25/24
July 11, 2008
Road to glory passes through Lakehead: Of all the odysseys Darnellia Russell has experienced — her teen pregnancy, her lawsuit against the Washington state school board, her high-school basketball team winning the state championship, the movie about her struggles and the fact she was ignored by the same U.S. Division I universities that once teased her with letters of recruitment — this has to be the oddest yet.That was where The Heart of the Game ended and where Russell's celebrity status exploded. She travelled the continent promoting the film as the teenager who took on the system and won. The movie received several honours, including the top entertainment award from the Women's Sports Foundation in Los Angeles. People recognized Russell and asked for her autograph. But those scholarship offers from Division I schools? They stopped coming soon after word got out she was pregnant.
posted by tommytrump to basketball at 11:43 AM - 5 comments
Exactly. Further, the article says the WNBA requires a 4-year degree, but men only have to be one year out of college.
posted by bperk at 01:45 PM on July 11, 2008
Can you say.... Double standard?
posted by yzelda4045 at 03:36 PM on July 11, 2008
Ditto Howard_T.
posted by irunfromclones at 05:03 PM on July 11, 2008
I can understand the colleges having second thoughts about giving her a scholarship after finding out she was pregnant given the weight gain and other physiological changes that go along with that. That's certainly not to say that someone couldn't have a baby and come back to be a great basketball player--that has happened--but when you are gambling on a teenager, that certainly has to be considered. When a male player gets someone pregnant, those physical changes are not there. Of course, there are responsibilities thrust (hopefully) upon both parents, and that could take this argument in any number of directions, although I would also argue that the mother more often than not (and particularly in a non-married situation) bears more of those responsibilities. Again, all situations are different, but when you have a limited amount of money and a limited number of scholarships to give out, you have to weigh all of these factors. Now the fact that the WNBA requires a 4-year degree, on the other hand. That is news to me and is completely ridiculous.
posted by bender at 10:02 AM on July 14, 2008
Do drugs, commit crimes, get into fights, father children out of wedlock and the NCAA and its member institutions just keep the scholarships coming. But bear a child out of wedlock? OH! The horror! How can we accept such a person! The hypocrisy is obvious. I find it hard to believe that officials of at least some of these colleges cannot see what they are doing.