7th Inning Stretch with Scott Fragale - Not So Deep Thoughts: This Rose Smells Sour

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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