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Derrick Z.Jackson absolutely blasted Paul Hewitt in an article today in the Boston Globe. Here's the article. It discusses the new NCAA Reform package.
The article opens with this:
THE WHINING is loud over the National Collegiate Athletic Association's unprecedented attempt to tell schools that if they do not educate their players, they will lose scholarships and eligibility for postseason play.
Then he lays into Coach Hewitt:
The top prize for patronization and ''woe's me" goes to Georgia Tech's men's basketball coach, Paul Hewitt. He said the new NCAA rules might be discriminatory, since he estimates that 95 percent of college basketball players who leave early for the pros are African-American. Tech has a graduation rate of 19 percent, 9 percent for black players.
''So, say one year I have a great class, three first-round NBA potential draft picks. In two years we win the national championship," Hewitt told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. ''They all leave after that second year, and then after two straight losing seasons, I get fired. At the end of four years, if I'm docked three scholarships . . . who's going to want to hire me?"
The answer to that question should be ''Who cares?" It was way past time for the NCAA to act in an era when many universities are minor-league professional franchises and where the 8 a.m. class is an extracurricular activity. The ruling body of college sports this week released new academic rankings, broadly based on a 2001 recommendation by the Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics to ban teams from postseason bowls and tournaments by 2001 if they do not achieve at least a 50 percent graduation rate.
Then he adds in an editorial based on GT's scores:
For all the whining, the NCAA was incredibly kind in releasing only the one-year data -- especially to schools like Georgia Tech, which was above the threshold. On the long-term basis in the NCAA's 2004 graduation report, the 46 schools fare much worse. The 2004 report covers scholarship athletes who entered school in the four-year period from 1994 through 1997 and whether they graduated within six years.
OOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhh, I get it. You are looking for a way to slam Coach Hewitt and could NOT do it based on the facts. So you want to write that if we somehow had ALL the facts we would see the truth about Georgia Tech and Coach Hewitt.
Well, first Derrick, let me say - you're an idiot. A plain-out, media-talking head idiot.
Now, let me tell YOU the facts. Coach Hewitt has brought in 12 players since he became the head coach at Georgia Tech. Of that 12, 9 of them have graduated. Now in case you don't know how to use a calculator, that's a 75% graduation rate.
More facts. Here is the deal with the three who did NOT graduate. One of them went into the NBA draft after his freshman year and was picked #4 and is now the starting forward for a certain NBA franchise north of the US border. I would say not so bad. The second guy transferred to a northern school, left in good standing, and appears to be in good standing to graduate from his new school. You want to penalize coach for that one? The third kid was a European player who left in order to play professional ball in Europe to support his family. You have an issue with that???
So the facts are that 9/12 players (75%) under Coach Hewitt have graduated, and the other 3 are either playing pro-ball or transferred and none left in bad academic standing.
So show me YOUR facts that somehow entitle you to blast Coach Hewitt and insinuate in your slimy paper that Coach Hewitt had anything to do with a low graduation rate based on a faulty measureing system for players that he had NOTHING to do with??? Tell me that.
Lastly, did I mention you're an idiot???