Derrick Rose and the ripple effect

Think it doesn't matter? Consider UCLA, Gillispie as fraud victims

BY RICK TELANDER
Chicago Sun-Times Columnist
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/index.html
May 29, 2009

Let's say you're of the cynical, entertain-me-now school of fandom.

You don't care a wit that young Bulls star Derrick Rose has been implicated as the beneficiary of some serious academic cheating at both his alma maters -- Simeon High School and the University of Memphis.


Derrick Rose and John Calipari in 2008

According to NCAA allegations first reported by the Memphis Commercial-Appeal and Chicago high school sources informing the Sun-Times, some person other than Rose allegedly took his college-entrance SAT, and someone with access to Rose's Simeon transcripts changed one of his grades from a D to a C just as Rose was applying to colleges.

So what, you say. He's a pro now. He was always gonna be a baller. Go, Bulls!

That's fine.

Live in your world of beer-can-on-the-belly sports relativism.

But just ponder the ripple effect and the hypocrisy revealed by the academic fraud before you lumber to the fridge for another cold one.

First off, Rose might never have gotten into a powerhouse hoops college like Memphis without the cheating. He might have had to spend time at a junior college or even go overseas to play. Had he not gone to Memphis, the Tigers almost certainly would not have made it to the 2008 NCAA championship game.

Think that matters to UCLA, which lost to Memphis in the semis?

Rose was clearly a one-and-done mercenary, something head coach John Calipari always new full well.

Partly because Rose went to Memphis, Calipari, then making $2.35 million a year and with four years left on his contract, abruptly bolted for Kentucky this April, becoming the nation's highest-paid college basketball coach in the process. His new deal? Eight years at $4.1 million per.

Gillispie topples

Think former Wildcats coach Billy Gillispie -- canned in March with five years left on his deal -- liked that? Not much. Gillispie just filed a $6 million lawsuit against Kentucky claiming breach of contract and fraud.

Oh, and here's a nice tidbit. ESPN.com, citing inside sources, stated in late March that, ''with a strong recruiting class coming in and a tradition already established at Memphis, Calipari wouldn't leave if the UK job was offered.''

Ha!

He was gone in an eye blink.

And, of course, so was Rose.

Off to the NBA, where, based largely on his display while at Memphis, and to a lesser degree at Simeon, where he led his team to back-to-back state championships, he was taken No. 1 in the 2008 NBA draft. Think that was worth a little money?

And how much was it worth to other parties, such as Rose's constantly pressuring, Svengali-like older brother Reggie?

As Rose's former club basketball team coach, Luther Topps, said of the NCAA investigation, ''Reggie moved me and [Simeon head coach Robert Smith] out of the way long before that, as soon as the money got involved.''

And, of course, partly because of where he was drafted and the role expected of him with the rebuilding Bulls, Rose flourished and was named NBA rookie of the year.

That, too, is both an honor and money in the bank.

Sanctimony minus standards

Let's think about the NBA itself for a moment.

This kind of manipulative fraud is precisely what commissioner David Stern almost guaranteed would blossom to new levels after he sanctimoniously declared that nobody could play in the NBA until at least one year after high school.

No more Kevin Garnetts or Kobe Bryants.

It's not that Stern and his league care about education -- the NBA has no diploma standards or even literacy standards whatsoever. What the NBA wants is the orderly entrance of older players who are a little more -- shall we say, polished? -- than post-adolescents.

We all know the phoniness involved in big-time athletes going to institutions of higher learning when those athletes have no academic mission, and when the schools have interest in the athletes only as stadium-fillers.

But when the hypocrisy becomes public like this, it indicts a lot more than just phonies like Calipari (Oh, and it's for sure the coach knew nothing!)

Consider the Chicago Public School system. Somebody can change a transcript grade -- as was done on the Simeon computer -- and the CPS investigators discipline ... no one?

Who took Rose's SAT?

That's not easy to do, what with IDs and signatures and the like.

If this were done for a non-athletic kid who desperately wanted to go to college to better himself or herself, to learn -- and then that student flourished academically -- you could even justify such an opportunity given.

But this was done in the name of let's-rob-the-bank.

Bulls vice president of basketball operations John Paxson is a straight arrow who agonizes over character.

Would he have taken Rose if he knew the kid had allegedly cheated this way?

Yes, this was all stuff done back in the ''amateur'' days. But you know something? Those days weren't so long ago. And they don't vanish under the weight of cash.

Derrick Rose has been a likable point guard in his one pro season.

But how do you explain the lesson here to, say, Chicago school children?

Practice your crossover, kids. As you know, schoolwork's for dummies.