Stephens: Institutional failure created CSU basketball disaster
A university is, above all else, an institution of higher learning.
It is not a basketball team. Not a stadium. Nor is it a mascot.
It’s a publicly funded entity designed to educate men and women and help them prepare for careers.
No matter what a university does to flaunt its athletic department as a marketing tool to boost enrollment, its responsibility to athletics is first and foremost to make sure student-athletes earn their degrees.
Colorado State University confirmed Tuesday that three of its men’s basketball players, Che Bob, Devocio Butler and Kimani Jackson, did not meet academic requirements in the fall semester and will be ineligible to play for the Rams beginning Jan. 17.
This means the three juniors were unable to maintain a 1.9 grade-point average, the minimum standard per the NCAA, leaving CSU to finish the final 14 guaranteed games of the season with seven eligible players.
If one player fails to meet academic requirements, then perhaps that player didn’t care about anything other than basketball. When three fail simultaneously, there’s a bigger problem.
Colorado State plans to finish season with 7 players
College isn’t easy, and being a student-athlete with the classroom demands that come on top of 6 a.m. weights and daily practices is challenging. But athletes have study hall requirements. In the case of CSU men’s basketball, first-year players — including Bob and Butler — must spend time each week in “structured study” during their first semester on campus.
In addition, CSU provides all student-athletes with their own academic advisor, tailors assistance to individuals with unique tutoring regiments and offers programs outside of the minimum requirements to help them achieve academic success.
So how when an athlete has more structure and opportunities for success than an average student do three players on the same 15-man roster become ineligible?
That's inexcusable.
When asked how with all the safeguards in place CSU finds itself in this situation, athletic director Joe Parker told the Coloradoan on Wednesday that academic programming is ultimately independent and students have to manage their responsibilities and focus if they want to compete in intercollegiate athletics.
That’s completely unacceptable.
There is responsibility that falls on this trio. But when you’re dealing with 18-, 19- and 20-year-old kids, there will be times when they need motivation, times when they don’t want to write that paper and need a swift kick to remind them the consequences if they don’t. CSU basketball coaches had previously been known to do that, constantly checking grades and communicating with advisors.
Never before under Larry Eustachy has the CSU basketball team struggled academically.
Its scores for single-year Academic Progress Rate, a measure introduced by the NCAA to track student-athlete graduation, have always been strong, reaching a perfect 1,000 in Eustachy's third season (2014-15). Even so, this mismanagement of players falls heavily on Eustachy and his staff.
Staying on top of players and their grades should be just as important to a coach as winning games. It doesn’t matter how perfect the play is that a coach draws up; if he doesn’t have players on the floor to execute, what good does it do?
That priority doesn’t seem to be in line at CSU.
In a written statement from Eustachy on Tuesday night, hours after he walked out of an interview with the Coloradoan questioning rumors of pending academic ineligibility, he said, “ … Our top priority is to educate, and we will continue to emphasize this in all that we do.”
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Parker acknowledged CSU knew the three players would become academically ineligible shortly after professors reported grades Dec. 20. But he has allowed them to play in the three games since because the NCAA penalty doesn’t set in until the first day of the spring semester.
Bob, Butler and Jackson also played in Wednesday night's game at San Jose State, even after the university acknowledged their academic shortcomings.
The reason for that, Parker said, is because he believes the NCAA bylaw isn’t meant to be punitive. (Yes, it is.) He added if those players had the choice, they’d play the rest of the season.
When CSU opted to use what wiggle room the NCAA allows to squeeze out a few more wins by using players who were unable to meet minimum academic requirements, the university is using its student-athletes as products.
Parker was vehement that CSU athletics is not a business. Then what is it?
Because where men’s basketball is concerned, academics haven’t been made a priority this year.
And contracts for Eustachy, women’s basketball coach Ryun Williams and football coach Mike Bobo include few expectations of athletes in the classroom, only that they need passing APR scores to be eligible for cash bonuses. Parker was not involved in those negotiations. CSU President Tony Frank was. His office declined to comment Wednesday.
The only responsibility Eustachy has is to win games, per this contract.
And that makes for a total institutional failure.
For insight and analysis on athletics around Northern Colorado and the Mountain West, follow sports editor Matt L. Stephens at twitter.com/mattstephens and facebook.com/stephensreporting.