Bledsoe Situation From Birmingham

NCAA looks into Bledsoe's past in Birmingham


By Jon Solomon -- The Birmingham News


May 28, 2010, 11:10PM




The NCAA visited Birmingham earlier this year with questions about Bledsoe, who played his senior year at Parker and stayed one season at Kentucky. (The Birmingham News)The NCAA visited Birmingham earlier this year to ask questions about former University of Kentucky basketball player Eric Bledsoe's past, including his residency and academics in high school, according to two people who spoke with the NCAA.

Huffman High School basketball coach Steve Ward, Bledsoe's coach when he attended Hayes High, said he met with two NCAA officials in late February. Among the questions asked, according to Ward, was whether he could provide a copy of Bledsoe's transcript from Hayes prior to transferring to Parker High. Ward said he no longer has the transcript.

Birmingham city schools Athletics Director George Moore said he was approached by two NCAA officials in late February seeking information about Bledsoe's residency. Moore said the school district decided the information was personal and could not be provided to the NCAA.

Moore said it was "very unusual" for him to interact with the NCAA in person. "We knew the way they were talking it was some kind of investigation," he said.

The New York Times reported on its website Friday night several accusations regarding Bledsoe's high school career in Birmingham, which began at Hayes and ended as a senior at Parker.

Brenda Axle, the landlord for the house where Bledsoe and his mother moved for his senior year of high school, told The Times that Bledsoe's coach at Parker, Maurice Ford, paid her at least three months' rent, totaling $1,200. By moving there, Bledsoe was eligible play for Parker.

NCAA rules prohibit a high school student's family from receiving rent money from a public school coach. Ford denied paying the Bledsoe family's rent.

The Times reported Bledsoe's high school transcript from his first three years showed that it would have taken an "improbable" academic makeover for him to achieve minimum NCAA academic qualifying standards.

The Times said it obtained a copy of Bledsoe's high school transcript that showed he jumped from about a 1.9 grade-point average in core courses at Hayes to just under a 2.5 during his senior year. Ford told The Times that Bledsoe needed a 2.475 in core courses to qualify based on his ACT score.

Also, The Times reported an anonymous college coach who recruited Bledsoe as saying that Ford explicitly told his college staff that he needed a specific amount of money to let Bledsoe sign with that school. Ford denied the accusation.

The scope of the NCAA's investigation is not clear, according to The Times and independent reporting by The Birmingham News. The NCAA does not comment about investigations. Kentucky has not commented.

Ward and Moore told The Birmingham News that NCAA officials said they also spoke with the Alabama High School Athletic Association. AHSAA Associate Executive Director Joe Evans, who handles eligibility and investigations for the association, declined to comment.

Moore identified one of the NCAA officials he spoke with as Abigail Grantstein, NCAA assistant director of enforcement. Grantstein works with the NCAA's Basketball Focus Group investigating Division I men's basketball enforcement issues.

Bledsoe, a 6-foot-1 guard, announced in May he was keeping his name in the NBA Draft after one season at Kentucky, where he made the SEC All-Freshman team. He could be selected in the first round on June 24.

Bledsoe started his high school career at Hayes, which closed in 2008. He attended Parker for his senior season, guiding the school to an appearance in the state final after a memorable semifinal upset over a Mobile team led by DeMarcus Cousins, Bledsoe's future Kentucky teammate.

Several administrators at Parker said they had not been contacted by the NCAA. Ford told The Birmingham News earlier this month that he had not spoken with the NCAA and said he did not know of any NCAA visits to Birmingham.

Maureen Reddick, Bledsoe's mother, declined to comment. When asked if she has a sense of what the NCAA wants to learn about her son, she responded: "No, you could call them and ask them." The phone call was disconnected shortly thereafter.

Ward said he asked the NCAA officials during his roughly 15-minute meeting why they were asking questions, "and they said they couldn't disclose it." Ward said the NCAA's questions were "real surface stuff" about Bledsoe.

"Did he get in trouble? What type of student was he? Was he eligible? Did he have to go to summer school? Nothing real deep," Ward said. "They wanted to know where did he stand academically, did he come to school ... stuff like that. I guess they were trying to feel me out."

Ward said Bledsoe was always eligible while at Hayes. He said the NCAA asked him for Bledsoe's transcript, but "the school is closed so I had no reason to keep it. The Birmingham Board of Education would have it. I wouldn't have any reason to keep it anyway. He was passing. He was eligible."

In The New York Times story, Ford described Bledsoe's grades at Hayes as "awful" and said it was his policy not to provide transcripts to colleges unless the player was about to go on an official visit.

Former Hayes principal Anthony Gardner, now the principal at Jackson-Olin, told The News that as far as he knew Bledsoe was in good academic standing when Hayes closed.

"I didn't see any reason why he should not have been allowed to play (at Parker), other than maybe an issue with his residency," said Gardner, who said the NCAA did not contact him. "There were lots of people pulling at Eric."

If Bledsoe had stayed in the same home after Hayes closed, he would have been zoned for Woodlawn with other Hayes teammates. Reddick said in 2009 that she moved the family from a bad area in Woodlawn Gardens to Center Street South -- in the Parker zone -- and that the move was ruled legitimate by the Birmingham school system.

Bledsoe missed some games to start his senior year due to questions about whether his family's move was legitimate. Moore said the city school system did "everything by the book" in checking Bledsoe's residency.

"We would not allow him to participate because everything was not in place," Moore said. "Parker didn't like what we came up with, and that's when they made the appeal to the high school athletic association. After that, Parker got all the proper documentation, so that's the way we left it (to let Bledsoe play)."

Ford said the AHSAA ruled that Bledsoe's move was legitimate.
Moore said the NCAA did not seek Bledsoe's grades from his office, only multiple attempts to get residency information. In denying the NCAA's request, Moore consulted with Barbara Allen, who was Birmingham's interim superintendent at the time.
Allen said she doesn't know what information the NCAA sought and instructed Moore to refer the NCAA's questions to the AHSAA.

"It's my understanding we send all the information to the (AHSAA) when a child plays a sport, so they have all the files and information there," Allen said. "It wasn't that we didn't want to cooperate. It's that I didn't know that we had anything. George said the (AHSAA) has everything."

Bledsoe was heavily recruited by UAB and briefly committed to Ole Miss in the fall of 2008. His recruitment intensified in 2009 during and after his senior season, with offers from schools such as Florida, Tennessee, Memphis and Kentucky, and interest from Duke. But it was uncertain whether Bledsoe would qualify academically.

Bledsoe said in February 2009 that he had a 2.4 grade-point average and a 15 ACT score, short of the NCAA qualifying standards. He said then that he needed an 18 or 19 on the ACT to be eligible.

Ford defended the high grades that Bledsoe received at Parker. Ford told The Times that his guidance and discipline in forcing Bledsoe to attend class and do his work saved the player's basketball career.

Ward and Moore each said they never heard any more from the NCAA after their communications in February.

"I suspect we'll find out something on this down the road," Moore said.