I know that I am way behind in my Netflix viewing, and this weekend, I finally got around to watching “Th Blind Side”, the warm and fuzzy Disney version of the Michael Oher story,. And during the course of the movie, you could not help but draw a parallel between Oher’s story and that of Kentucky’s Eric Bledsoe.
Michael Oher was of course, the Memphis high school manhulk of a boy, who virtually homeless, was adopted by the Tuohy’s, and was rescued from the streets and transformed almost overnight into a SEC caliber offensive lineman and ended up going to the Ole Miss Rebels and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens. The NCAA was portrayed as a ball busting female agent who apparently had her investigation settled by a heartwarming response by Michael Oher to a question that was the focal point of her “investigation”.
And apparently, all it takes is a little love, and the sauciness of a Kathy Bates tutoring session to raise Oher’s GPA from “starting with a zero” to enough to meet NCAA muster and allow Oher to play at Ole Miss. Granted, in the movie, it was revealed that Oher had an IQ in the 80’s which would call serious question into whether Oher could even comprehend the material being thrown at him. Never the less, Oher and the Tuohy’s prevailed, overcame his grade discrepancy, and got him into Ole Miss.
What a heart warming story.
Where is Eric Bledsoe’s Disney movie?
In real life, Eric Bledsoe overcame a very rough home life and bounced from school to school. In the last act of his Eric Bledsoe needed to boost his grades from a 1.75 GPA to a 2.475 GPA to become eligible to play college ball. And using the same resources that Michael Oher did (the BYU online courses), Bledsoe was able to turn his GPA around to make him eligible to live his dream and play college basketball. The NCAA investigated Bledsoe’s grades. And did so thoroughly. In fact, they did a special investigation of Bledsoe’s grades and deemed him eligible a second time.
And I know the movie the “Blind Side” missed this, but in real life, Michael Oher needed more than a 2.65 GPA in order to become eligible for college ball. For whatever reason, the movie omitted the online courses and went with just the classroom learning. So in reality, Michael Oher, with his “IQ in the 80’s” needed to get even better grades that Eric Bledsoe did in order to become eligible.
But in real life, the movie version of Eric Bledsoe’s high school career may end up being not a feel good Disney movie, but a warning instructional film for NCAA coaches on what kind of student not to recruit. Now I know that as of right now, the fate of Eric Bledsoe rests not in the NCAA, but in the hands of the law firm that is investigating the matter. If they decide that the grade discrepancies was not enough to make Bledsoe ineligible, then the matter is over.
If they do take the unprecedented task of overturning the grades that Bledsoe received (and that his teacher says are still accurate), then it could become a matter for the NCAA and pundits like Garry Parrish are already licking their lips, saying there is no way that Kentucky does not have to vacate games. Granted, what we have is a journalism once again putting the cart before the horse, but if Kentucky is punished for Bledsoe’s grades, it sets a very bad standard for the NCAA.
The fact is that yes, Eric Bledsoe was a risk academically. This is why he was cleared, not once, but twice by the NCAA. And sooner or later, the NCAA has to stop being a revisionist organization that keeps going back and overturning their previous findings. Once the NCAA clears a player, that player should be cleared. And I am sick and tired of hearing how the NCAA has a very small compliance staff that is tasked with the duty of going over these transcripts and due to the small size of the department, these things happen.
Enough is enough. The NCAA surely makes more than enough money to have a top of the notch, fully staffed compliance department that can give these transcripts the proper attention the first time, and have there be no second guessing. No other office in corporate America would still be intact if it were as unreliable and inept as the NCAA. If any department at my office made as many mistakes and had to go back and re-investigate things nearly a year and a half after the fact, heads would roll. Quit complaining about the small staff, NCAA. It’s 2010, you have the money, so hire the people and get the equipment to make these certifications the breeze it should be. If you can’t do it, disband NCAA compliance, and farm it out to a third party that will surely do it more efficiently than you have been doing. End of story. It’s an embarrassment the way you are running things now.
And finally, who is the real victim if Kentucky is forced to vacate the wins from the Bledsoe era. Sure, it will suck for Kentucky and Kentucky fans,m but the real victim will be the at risk athlete. No longer will school recruit an athlete with low grades his senior year in high school due to the possibility of someone in the NCAA deciding this needs to be looks at further. Will schools only recruit kids they know will make the grades with no reason? If that happens, the inner city kids, who have worked their ass off to qualify for college and make the grades — barely — will be the victims.
Will schools stop pursuing that kid with the 2.0 GPA headed into his senior year, worried that the NCAA will retroactively on a whim, come back to do a further investigation into his grades, and put the previously played season in jeopardy? Or do schools start going after the players that they know will not have trouble qualifying … and let the at risk players fall through the cracks?
Unfortunately most of the schools that a lot of the “at risk” kids go to would be squarely in the inner city. And college coaches giving up on these players is something of a shame. For some of the players, like Bledsoe, a chance to play ball at Kentucky or a division one school is really the only way to break out of the cycle of poverty they have spent the last 16-18 years. Getting a free ride to college would be an impossibility to achieve if it were not for basketball giving them a chance to escape.
But if Eric Bledsoe does become the second player to cause his school to vacate the victories despite being cleared by the NCAA, the NCAA compliance department will lose all credibility. And college coaches when given the choice of a kid that is talented but “at risk” and a kid that has the grades but may be lesser talented. Will coaches take the “safe route” not being able to trust the NCAA compliance? Or will that be a factor?
It’s hard to tell how other coaches will react if the NCAA keeps certifying players and then going back to overturn their previous decisions. One way or another, the college coaches will learn to adapt, even if that means walking away from the “at risk” kids, even though many lives have been turned around by a college coach giving a kid the break that he needs and taking a chance on him.
And as usual, the real losers are the kids that need the break the most.
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