Quitters
and consequences
By Todd Leland
On-line Forty-Niner
In
the past two weeks college basketball has
been slammed by scandals involving numerous
institutions. The two most notable incidents
involved the University of Georgia and Saint
Bonaventure University.
The basketball teams of both institutions
are under investigation for violations of
National Collegiate Athletic Association
rules. St. Bonaventure played a good number
of its games with a player that was ineligible,
while the coaches at Georgia are under investigation
for academic fraud, falsifying expense reports
and other NCAA violations.
These acts in themselves go against all
that college sports is about, but the response
by those involved in the two incidents damaged
the game far more than the initial violations
ever will.
The players on the St. Bonaventure basketball
team decided to forfeit the remainder of
their games when they were told the team
had been banned from the Atlantic Ten conference
tournament. The president of the university
resigned as the Bonnies head coach was suspended.
In Georgia the team was banned from the
SouthEastern Conference tournament and told
they would not be allowed to play in the
NCAA tournament. The Georgia coach too had
been suspended.
Yes, both teams are under investigation
for numerous NCAA violations and should
be punished, but the people around these
teams committed sports sacrilege. They quit.
A friend of mine has a great line, “The
first ones off a sinking ship are the rats,”
and in this case he could not be any more
subtle.
The players at St. Bonaventure should hide
in their dorm rooms until the semester concludes,
then sneak off into the night and never
return. The brunt of the blame should fall
on the school’s president and athletic director.
Good athletics starts at the top and these
two did nothing to stop the mass exodus
by the basketball players.
If they did not have enough players from
the team to suit up, if they could not find
a decent intramural athlete, they should
have slapped a jersey on little Stevie,
the 5-foot 4-inch physics major. Stevie
could probably exact the mass, density and
atomic weight of the molecules in a basketball
before he could ever get it near a basket,
but at least he would play.
The Bonnies and the administration around
them quit. There can be nothing worse. Unless
you still have a desire to play and the
people you trust quit on you.
Georgia is mired in much the same mess as
St. Bonaventure, yet the players still want
to play. It is said that one bad apple ruins
the orchard, and Jim Harrick is one bad
apple, but why does the entire team have
to be punished.
Suspend the coach, kick the dirty players
off the team but don’t end these kids’ season.
These players work too hard for too long
and most for no luxurious benefits to have
their season crushed because the people
they trust have let them down.
Quitting in sports is awful, but thankfully
it most often happens in the midst of sports
and can only be felt and judged by the individual[s]
that quit. It is unfortunate that these
events have been felt not only by the athletes
and students at the two universities in
question but by students and athletes everywhere.
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