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 Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Not So Deep Thoughts: This Rose Smells Sour
Posted by Tuff Stuff
By now, most have heard about the impending investigation going on at
the University of Memphis, where former "student-athlete" (and I use
that term very loosely) Derrick Rose is being accused of knowingly
submitting a falsified SAT test score. Apparently, someone at Rose's
high school (Simeon, H.S. on Chicago's south side) changed Rose's grade
from a D to a C which allowed him to meet the academic requirements at
Memphis where he went onto to lead the Tigers to withing a couple of
buckets of winning the National Championship in 2007, Rose's one and
only season with the Tigers.
If you're like me, you're not the least bit surprised by the
allegations, as this isn't the first time (and certainly won't be the
last) an athlete has been given a free pass or school officials have
looked the other way when it comes to a star athlete's
less-than-stellar academic qualifications. The  problem I have with the
whole thing is that from everything I've read, the only punishment that
could be handed out to Rose, is some negative publicity to his
otherwise unblemished reputation.
Don't get me wrong, the school officials at Simeon who doctored the
scores and then looked the other way at the time of the wrongdoing are
the ones that should be held accountable. They are the ones who
knowingly altered test scores for Rose and who's to say that this type
of procedure hasn't been pulled off countless other times before the
latest scandal became public?
But what about Rose himself? He obviously knew he didn't receive the
grade he was ultimately given? He obviously knew that if he didn't meet
the academic criteria at Memphis his NBA future would be forced to wait
until he could find another school with lower standards, go to a Junior
College, work on getting his grades up to par and then transferring to
a D-1 school and ultimately doing the one-and-done thing before
embarking on a career in the NBA. Shouldn't he be punished in some way
as well? Both he and now-former Memphis coach John Calipari will both
undoubtedly walk away from the whole incident unscathed while some
scapegoat at Simeon High School who takes in $45,000 a year will
ultimately lose his job while the other two will continue to make their
millions and smile all the way to the bank.
Not sure what the punishment for something like this should be. Perhaps
Rose should have to take the test again today and continue to take it
again and again until he meets the original requirements. Maybe he
should be banned from playing professionally until he meets the
standards that he pretended to meet back in 2007? My guess is that is
this proposed rule were to be put into place, the NBA would have a hard
time filling out its rosters each year.
While I don't claim to have all the answers to problems such as this, I
do know that accountability is the key here. If you knowingly cheated,
you should be punished and punished severely. There is no statute of
limitations with something like this. If you're found to have cheated
10, 15 even 25 years after the fact, you should be punished just the
same as someone found guilty of cheating the day after the test scores
were calculated. With no ramifications for actions such as this, who
can blame young adults for looking to take the easy way out?
Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:30:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00) 
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