At Georgetown, a Player and His Ignominious Mark

[hoyaLS05]

At Georgetown, a Player and His Ignominious Mark
www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/30georgetown.html?ref=sports

What Binghamton officials did not know, and what few have talked about amid this feel-good week here, is that Thompson and Broadus recruited a player to Georgetown who in four years of public high school in Delaware compiled final grades of F in 12 courses.

That player was Marc Egerson, who had a grade-point average of 1.33 in core courses like math, science and English. He passed nine such courses without receiving a grade higher than a C. As a freshman, he even failed physical education.

[gmupatriot2010]

The situation needs to be looked at with an unbiased set of eyes.

I don't think JT III is running a "renegade program" like The Shark in the 90s with UNLV. He seems like a first class guy and he should not be roasted alive based on one player.

I think the Times just needs a story because Syracuse sucks and because the Red Storm are not as great as they used to be

[chinatownfanclub]

what is with the ny times / washpost agenda? can they print anymore negative articles this week?

[DFW HOYA]

A strange article.

It starts out as a story that a recruit got in under the wire, but it's irrelevant since he isn't at Georgetown anymore.

Then it turns into a "Binghampton didn't know about Egerson" angle when it recruited Broadus, also irrelevant.

Then, the article interviews someone with an 1170 that played football. What does that have to do with the Final Four?

There's a legitimate discussion about Egerson out there somewhere, but this wasn't it.

[bubbrubbhoya]

It's an ugly incident, for sure, but what an unbelievable hatchet-job this is. The end of the article is absolutely outrageous. How about doing a little more work next time, Pete Thamel, and digging up the academic performance of the rest of the team...you know, the part that has 1 loss since the middle of January? And what about players past...like AKD, who is now at UVA Law. Uggh, the NYTimes just loves to keep pointing out how great a job they did uncovering the diploma mills last year. Neat!

ADDITION: How does a genius like this Kaszuba character, who apparently couldn't hack it on the football team (comment withheld), get off being embarrassed at the admission of an unqualified student? He's been banished to the Claire Cooper realm of Georgetown for me.

[mm]

The last few nights I've been just doing Google searches on random Hoyas just to see what kind of stories I'd dig up and Egerson came to mind because I remember reading some stuff on him earlier this year and it looked like he was gonna play a big role for this year's team. Then I read he was done and I wondered why. So when I dug around I found a copy of the old NY Times piece here about the shady rep of Lutheran Christian.

So I put two and two together and it finally made sense why Egerson 'left' and I was just waiting for it to go national

[HoyaTejano]

It comes with the territory.
The central point though is that Egerson isn't here anymore and GU probably won't extend risk this far ever again.

[hoyaLS05]

mm said:

The last few nights I've been just doing Google searches on random Hoyas just to see what kind of stories I'd dig up and Egerson came to mind because I remember reading some stuff on him earlier this year and it looked like he was gonna play a big role for this year's team. Then I read he was done and I wondered why. So when I dug around I found a copy of the old NY Times piece here about the shady rep of Lutheran Christian.

So I put two and two together and it finally made sense why Egerson 'left' and I was just waiting for it to go national

But the diploma mill thing ISN'T why he left. It was the fact that this article and Barker have both pointed out -- that Marc became a father.

[The Stig]

Why don't they mention the other players on our team, all of whom are fine students? Why do they focus on a player who isn't even on the team anymore?

I think this is a bit of a chest-beating excersize by the NYT. They were the ones who broke this story (about Lutheran), and now they want people to hear about it as much as possible.

I'd wager that of all Georgetown's players, Egerson is the one who has gotten the most press in the NYT in the past two years. Now on the whole, I think the Times is a fine newspaper, but it has had black marks on its record in the past (remember Jayson Blair?). Would it be fair to the Times if the most common thing we mentioned about them was that one isolated incident? Of course not. So why is it fair that they repeatedly bring up this one isolated incident among our basketball team?

[Locker]

dfw said:

A strange article.

It starts out as a story that a recruit got in under the wire, but it's irrelevant since he isn't at Georgetown anymore.

Then it turns into a "Binghampton didn't know about Egerson" angle when it recruited Broadus, also irrelevant.

Then, the article interviews someone with an 1170 that played football. What does that have to do with the Final Four?

There's a legitimate discussion about Egerson out there somewhere, but this wasn't it.

Of course, only those readers who made it to THE EIGHTH PARAGRAPH learned that Egerson is not on the Georgetown team in the Final Four.

[GIGAFAN99]

Alright that's it. It is officially time to THROW DOWN with anyone who writes an article about one player from a diploma mill who is NO LONGER on the team.

Oh by the way, the other three schools in the Final Four have boosters with SUITCASES of cash for their recruits in every sport. Ohio State has had two MAJOR NCAA INFRACTIONS in basketball since 1990 and the only reason they had those was to protect their filthy football program. Florida is the cleanest football school in Florida which is a bit like being the best episode of Wings. UCLA needed a criminal in Harrick to recapture its glory. The schools in this Final Four have all done disgusting things for the love of protecting football corruption through basketball sacrifice.

The only school left that has had no major NCAA infractions EVER is Georgetown. Let's quit with the slam job on one recruit with bad grades when the Hoyas are trying to win one for the schools not tainted by the corrupt machine that is high D-1A football.

More than ever the Hoyas need to win it for the schools that play, and lose to, Colgate. If they want to write about the backgrounds of dismissed players, let them. It will be just another case of the media missing the big picture for the sake of a "good scoop." But the Hoyas need to win this for the little guy. I'm sick of this nonsense. Sorry to channel RDF for a second.

[CO_Hoya]

G'town is the only elite academic school of the four remaining teams.
G'town accepted a kid from a diploma mill, one who wouldn't have qualified if he hadn't gone there.

Look, I don't like negative press either, but Georgetown is being held to a higher standard than OSU, UF and UCLA. And we should be.

[mit0313]

Egerson was not failing...he had a child and was homesick. He has sent messages to all the guys on the team throughout the season on facebook wishing them luck.

Not to attack Kaszuba in this article, but as someone familiar with him through the football team he is very spiteful toward our school and the football program.

At the end of Benson's run he recruited many many players with character issues who didn't care about Georgetown as an institution or the football team. It is like the NY Times to dig deep for one-sided quotes to fit into a one-sided story.

[AustinHoya03]

A search reveals that Pete Thamel (who penned the article in question) has done more than a few articles on diploma mills, questionable academic practices at SEC football schools, and other 'potential NCAA violations.' I smell a book in the works, which may explain the appearance of this article.

[chinatownfanclub]

that's right i forgot. if you are a state school, getting state funding we will not put any academic expectations on you. clearly the state is only interested in funding a source of entertainment, not in educating students. whereas a private school, w/o state funding should be held to a higher standard b/c they are not receiving state funds and actually do care about educating students and god forbid if they take "a chance" on some students.

[HoyaTejano]

The Egerson story seems only to be pursued by the reporter at the NYT.

This isn't quite as bad as what Antoine Wright said about Texas A&M. References to poultry science, getting a better education in HS than in College Station, etc.

I concur with AustinHoya03. We'll see more in a book someday.

[SDHoya]

cohoya said:

G'town is the only elite academic school of the four remaining teams.
G'town accepted a kid from a diploma mill, one who wouldn't have qualified if he hadn't gone there.

Look, I don't like negative press either, but Georgetown is being held to a higher standard than OSU, UF and UCLA. And we should be.

Umm, what? UCLA does not count as an elite academic institution? I'm sure that US News would take issue with that:

23. Georgetown
26. UCLA

Law Schools:

14. Georgetown
15. UCLA

[seaweed]

Are you being ironic?

chinatownfanclub said:

that's right i forgot. if you are a state school, getting state funding we will not put any academic expectations on you. clearly the state is only interested in funding a source of entertainment, not in educating students. whereas a private school, w/o state funding should be held to a higher standard b/c they are not receiving state funds and actually do care about educating students and god forbid if they take "a chance" on some students.

[Filo]

There's a lot to complain about re: that article and the slective information it presents, but my biggest problem with it is that it has nothing new to say whatsoever, since it is a rehash of what was previously reported. So, the reporter throws out this new "Broadus to Binghamton" angle to get the story back in the paper.

And, the AD at Binghamton saying they worked hard to learn about Broadus and never heard about this? Sorry, he is either flatly lying or wholly incompetent. If not the former, he needs to hire someone who knows how to do some elementary due diligence on his candidates. A high schooler with a computer would have come up with this kind of information.

[bubbrubbhoya]

People...write these complaints in emails to Thamel. I just wrote a long letter, but I failed to bring up plenty of these points. I know chances of his acknowledging our complaints are small, but we have to try to get this fixed in print.