Callous NCAA Heartless Toward Terps’ Cassell Jr.
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SAM CASSELL JR.
By DERON SNYDER
What do Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch and torturers of small animals have in common?
They all have more heart than the NCAA.
Remarkably, college athletics’ governing board has lowered the bar yet again, a feat that seemed morally impossible. For no other reason than because it can, the NCAA has dashed the aspirations of two more student-athletes, innocent bystanders-turned-victims Sam Cassell Jr. and Myles Davis.
Cassell and Davis graduated from Notre Dame Prep (Fitchburg, Mass) last spring and accepted basketball scholarships from Maryland and Xavier, respectively. Everything was fine until the NCAA decided — in mid-August! — that Cassell and Davis are ineligible to play in 2012-2013 based on some “core classes” they took in 2010-2011.
This isn’t to suggest that the NCAA should accept and any and all coursework done at prep schools, some of which have been dubbed “diploma mills.” Questionable schools, especially those with athletic prowess and academic rigor at opposite ends of the spectrum, are placed on a “Watch List” and their graduates can lose credit for some classes they passed.
Fine. But don’t wait until mid-August to make that determination, just weeks before college begins. And don’t penalize 20 percent of the players while the other 80 percent continue on their merry way.
