Get ready Big Blue Nation for another possible week of brad press and swarmy “journalists” taking potshots at our school, coach, and former players. I did not say that it was justified or even for a legitimate reason, but that has not stopped Calipari’s critics before.
Sometime this week, the law firm investigating the high school academics of Eric Bledsoe will announce their findings. This of course all stems from the
Pat Forde
Pete Thamel story in which Thamel called into question Bledsoe’s academic records and wondered aloud how a student with such supposedly bad grades could turn it around so quickly and become NCAA worthy. Maybe if Thamel or someone had seen the movie “The Blind Side”, none of this would have come up. But the Thamel report hit the streets and for some reason, the Alabama High School Athletic Association ordered an investigation to look into Bledsoe’s eligibility.
I’m not a slow person, but I really do not get what the AHSAA looks to be solved by this investigation into one single person. The investigation is said to be focused on issues surrounding Bledsoe’s course grades at Hayes and Parker, as compared to the final transcript of his grades. It should be noted at this time that as far as I have been able to gather, that regardless of what this investigation finds, this is not a NCAA issue and should not affect Kentucky in any way. As from how I have had explained to me, it is more an investigation into the staffers at the school to ensure that all the proper procedures were being followed.
It should be noted that both the NCAA, and the Kentucky and Florida compliance offices looked into Bledsoe’s transcripts over a year ago, and they all found it valid and cleared Bledsoe as eligible to play.
And if the AHSAA wants to investigate their schools and make sure that the kids are getting proper grades and that the grades are doled out properly, I am all for that. But the limit of the investigation’s scope into just ONE player, Eric Bledsoe, instead of a sample of several students over a few school years has the feel of a very real witch hunt to it.
And once again, what is the good that can come out of this? It seems nothing, instead of to possibly embarrass a former student. m What is even more peculiar that in the hard economic times, the AHSAA has hired a law firm and had a budget of $10,000 to investigate this matter.
Yes, in times of slashed school budgets, the AHSAA deems it necessary to spend $10K on investigating one former student, who spent just one year in college after high school. In case you are wondering exactly what $10,000 can buy in school supplies for the district, it breaks down to this:
144,000 pencils
16,064 glue sticks
714 student chairs
2,640 books
2,638 boxes of markers or
8,571 notebooks
Or if the AHSAA really wants to look out for the protection and privacy of their students, they can use that $10K to launch an investigation into who is releasing their former students confidential records to at least two or three reporters.
Just a though. I thought the purpose of the school districts was to protect and not to persecute.
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