Gary Parrish On Eric Bledsoe

Gary Parrish On Eric Bledsoe


by
Chip Miller
September 18th, 2010 10:00 PM

So, some law firm, or at least a writer in the great state of Alabama, reported that Eric Bledsoe's grades don't jive...

His four-year transcript shows he made an A in Algebra III, but a grade report from those night sessions was recorded as a C, with a low C in the first semester and a low B in the second.

The problem? To be eligible for college you must have a GPA average of 2.50. Bledsoe's A barely qualified him, a C would have meant Eric would have been ruled ineligible and not qualified to play. The NCAA determines a player's eligibility through a sliding scale based on grade-point average in 16 core classes and an ACT or SAT score.

In his "Five For Friday" article, Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com gave his thoughts on the the current situation. here is the UK excerpts:

Is John Calipari about to vacate another 35 wins? Assuming the information Jon Solomon from the Birmingham News reported this week is correct, and I have no reason to suspect it's not, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where Kentucky isn't forced to vacate every game in which Eric Bledsoe participated. According to Solomon, Bledsoe made a C instead of an A in Algebra III during his senior year of high school, and if that C is applied to Bledsoe's transcript, his grade point average will drop below 2.5 and thus put him in a position where he should've been ineligible to play at Kentucky. Consequently, the NCAA could retroactively rule Bledsoe ineligible and force Kentucky to vacate the Elite Eight season.
Is that fair? I think it's insane that the NCAA can clear a student-athlete, tell a school he's OK to play, then come back a year later when issues are uncovered and hold the school responsible for playing the student-athlete unless it's also uncovered that the school was somehow involved in academic fraud. It's the equivalent of a cop telling you it's OK to drive 70, then watching you drive 70, then coming back and saying he just found out the speed limit is actually 60 so he's going to have to give you a ticket. Like I said, totally insane.
Still, the NCAA set a precedent of "strict liability" with the Derrick Rose case at Memphis and basically said the circumstances are irrelevant -- that if the NCAA clears a student-athlete and a school plays him that school is still at risk of vacating games if something improper is later uncovered, and it doesn't matter if the school was even involved. Apply that same logic here, and UK should vacate the season if Bledsoe's transcript is changed.
Again, I think it's crazy.
But strict liability is strict liability.
And I can't imagine anybody hates those two words more than Calipari hates those two words.
"I think it's insane," that quote alone wraps up my thoughts. Sometimes common sense has to come into play. In these type of cases, there is no common sense. It's a ruling made out of poor judgment and to me if it was Louisville, Tennessee, Duke or Kentucky, that decision to make a school vacate wins is wrong.
This situation is nothing new. Of relevance is the Darrell Arthur grade differentials on the National Championship Kansas team. In this case the NCAA had the following to say:
"The NCAA told ESPN.com's Andy Katz that for Arthur to be ineligible, there would have to be evidence that Arthur or Kansas knew or should have known about the changed grade."
KU's Athletics Director Jim Marchiony had the following to say:
Marchiony said high schools send athletes' transcripts to the NCAA, which determines whether an athlete is eligible to play in college. Because the NCAA declared Arthur eligible, Kansas would not have known about any grading problems in high school.
You make the call... Should a school be held accountable, if there is no proof that the school, or any member of the schools Athletic staff, was aware of the situation and the NCAA Clearinghouse rules a player eligible?

In the end, the NCAA Rules Enforcement: Committees on Infractions will have the final say... Let's just hope for UK it's a positive response.
Go Cats!!!

Complete story from Gary Parrish and CBSSports.com...

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/13965268/five-for-friday-coaching-headaches-from-coast-to-coast