Feel free to slap some sense into me, but is the accusation Ryan Sloan’s high school changed his grades really that big a deal? I’m willing to accept my bar has been lowered immensely when it comes to integrity within amateur athletics, but as far as “scandals” go, this registers at about a .02 on the Syracuse scale right now.
So wait, you’re telling me a high school administrator pressured the academic department to raise a football player’s grades? And that said player missed classes regularly? But at the end of the school year, the school pushed him through and he was able to accept a lucrative scholarship?¬†
This is called “extra credit” in the Big 12. In the SEC teachers and admins put this stuff on their resumes. You didn’t go to class the last three months? You failed your last 14 exams? Legally illiterate? Hell, you helped us beat Valley on Friday. Good luck at ‘Bama, son!
On Signing Day last year, The Fizz spoke to Sloan. He talked about his respect for the structure of football and the need to be coached up. Seemed like a good kid who, like many young athletes, probably had a tough go at it growing up. He never knew his dad, his mom was lost to heart disease when he was young, and he was accidentally blinded at 3.
So school officials bumped his grades from failing to a 65? You ever speak to public high school teachers? This happens with all kinds of¬†students, not just athletes. The school doesn’t want kids to be left behind. It reflects poorly on the teachers. It’s a drain on resources. Please. Go watch Waiting for Superman, a film about the inefficiencies of America’s school system, and then tell me if this is still a story.
Hey look, I wish every recruit that Syracuse landed was an A student. I wish every player, once they got to campus, attended every class. I also wish wideouts wouldn’t be nailed riding dirty with their brothers, safeties weren’t allegedly failing drug tests, highly touted centers weren’t assaulting their girlfriends, and SU was better than a 5-win program.
But I live in reality. This sentence actually makes me laugh. “The blockbuster charges of grade-fixing were leveled…” Wake up. Last year’s Heisman winner’s dad shopped him around the SEC for more than my house is worth. Football programs are housing criminal pedophilia escapades. Boosters are paying for players’ abortions. I’m supposed to be worried a backup SU defensive lineman was pushed through senior year of high school?
If you’ll excuse me, I have other things to do. Like Google if our longtime assistant coach’s wife has a sex tape with former players.
Posted: D.A.
