Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Interesting Sports Story

I have been very distracted at work today. I can read online stuff all day. No joke. In fact, I'm pretty close to doing it today.

I came across this article on the ESPN website. The story goes...a few years ago a college basketball player was killed by a teammate during the summer at Baylor University. When the murder had occurred, nobody had known that the teammate who had been killed had also been the recipient of some improper tuition payments made on his behalf by the coach. Upon hearing news of the murder, the head coach had decided that with the increased attention on the player that he would float a story about it being drug related as a smokescreen, so as to avoid any potential unsavory news surfacing about his NCAA violations. The article covers the travails of the assistant coach who alerted the NCAA about what the head coach had planned on doing, and the resulting blacklisting that he suffered because of his whistle-blowing. I thought these quotes were quite significant:

"I'm thousands of dollars in debt, no longer in the profession I went to school to pursue," said Rouse, whose $42,000 annual salary at Baylor was the most he'd ever made coaching basketball. "And I can tell you right now, five years later, working nightshift at a factory, making barely the minimum to survive, I don't regret it for one second. I wake up every day knowing that principles mean something..."

"I do believe. I do have hope," Rouse said. "I have faith in not only my God but in the goodness of people. There's no event in my life that could turn me into a cynic. None. I would have a hard time convincing young men to do the impossible if I let this situation make me a negative person. It won't happen."

1 comment:

Meredith said...

hey this is meredith eaton, how's it goin?

i love how the blog world reconnects irvine folk.

check out the peeps down diamante at www.fabeatons.blogspot.com