The NCAA announced Thursday that the University of Memphis will forfeit each of the 38 wins by its 2007-2008 men’s basketball team, a team that was astonishingly quick and nearly a national champion and … built on a fraud.
The fraud, apparently, was Derrick Rose, now a star of the Chicago Bulls.
The governing body of college sports says that a player on the Memphis team was academically ineligible because he took an SAT college entrance exam that was later canceled by the Education Testing Service, which administers the test. The test apparently was canceled because someone else took it for the player.
Neither ETS nor the NCAA has identified Rose, but he’s the only player who fits the NCAA’s description. Rose bombed three times on another entrance test, the ACT, then took the SAT in Detroit — not his hometown Chicago — and supposedly reached the minimum score required by the NCAA.
It’s time for Rose to clear up what happened here. A carefully worded statement issued through his attorney Thursday didn’t resolve anything. When Rose was asked about the controversy on Aug. 6, he said, “I know I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Really? Then he’s either the victim of a massive case of mistaken identity or not telling the truth. He should be howling or confessing. What’s it going to be?What we have is an apparent fraud to gain entrance to college for an athlete who probably didn’t want to be in college in the first place. Rose spent one year in Memphis, which let him qualify to enter the NBA draft. Then he came back home to join the Bulls. The NBA requires players to be at least 19 years old, and one year removed from high school graduation, to play in the league.
So Rose’s integrity has been smashed, Memphis’ stellar season has been tossed in the garbage, and for what?
Oh, lest we forget: The Chicago Public Schools system still has to answer for how a D on Rose’s high school transcript was changed to a C in the spring of 2007. That change — and the apparently fraudulent SAT test — cleared the way for Rose to enroll at Memphis.
Memphis wouldn’t have won 38 games in 2007-08 without Rose. It wouldn’t have made the finals of the NCAA tournament. But it would today have a genuine basketball season to claim.
The NBA ought to drop its age requirement. It makes no sense to say an 18-year-old can get hired at McDonald’s but can’t get hired by the Bulls.
But first things first. Rose needs to talk honestly about what happened in Detroit.
Who took the SAT in place of him? And why would he let that happen?
