12/21/24
March 04, 2003
We forfeit.: The players on the Men's Basketball team at St. Bonaventure have decided, in the wake of an eligibility scandal, to forfeit their remaining games this year. (My father teaches math at St. Bona. Yes, that's completely irrelevant to the story. But still...)
posted by Jaquandor to basketball at 05:53 PM - 4 comments
The sum total of remaining games is... two. The last one is on Saturday.
posted by Smackfu at 02:33 PM on March 05, 2003
The kids are absolutely getting vilified by the press. More info seems to be coming out that the ineligibility of this was known by as many as three coaches in the conference that tried to recruit him. The players had no good options left to them to express their displeasure with the administration. Everybody lost in this scenario. Bummer.
posted by vito90 at 08:00 AM on March 06, 2003
The students are the only ones showing any leadership on this, and they are being piloried. The sports press should be ashamed, but it refuses to acknowledge that the sports that they are writing about are, frequently, corrupt, exploitative enterprises. College sports are a scandal because the schools have created an enviroment where scandal can florish. If every story about college hoops started with the graduation rate of the school or the coach under discussion, we would be on the way towards recognizing what we are talking about when we are talking about big time college sport. And if the NCAA made graduation rate an eligibility requirement for post season play, we would see the end of this sort of thing. The coach and the president of St. Bonaventure knew this kid wasn't eligible: hell, they knew that there was no way he could ever graduate-- but they exploited him anyway. I say good for the other players on the team-- they are the ones who have had their degree degraded, and they should have every right to protest
posted by outside counsel at 12:12 PM on March 07, 2003
This type of self-imposed, preemptive action seems to be the trend in college sports. I can't speak to the Bonnies situation specifically, but Fresno St. has done some thing very similar. The big motive with CSU Fresno was to take their lumps this year so they will have a clean slate next season when they host the WAC tourny. From the read of the article it would seem the players are intent on extracting a little flesh from the administration and the conference. Successfully I might add.