Let’s be clear about something. In 95% of the cases (yes, a made up number) any player who completed his junior year does not “voluntarily” transfer or leave a D-1 program unless there are criminal, academic or personal issues. That player is stuck dropping down to D-2 basketball if they want to get a scholarship and play. Their eligibility at the upper-level is shot because at D-1 a transfer has to sit out a year. They can play immediately if they drop a level.
So, I’m not even going to pretend that Pitt coaches weren’t doing everything they could to convince Cassin Diggs to leave the basketball team. It may not have been with the direct coldness of a Jim Calhoun forced exit, but it was done. I can’t say I’m comfortable with it, simply because it means falling back on the old chestnut of “well it goes on everywhere else.”
At the same time, the rationalizing part of my brain that knows how this helps Pitt by freeing up that scholarship to a player who may be more productive and may fill that immediate need at shooting guard. It continues with the point that this is only the first time it has happened, and only the second transfer under Dixon.
To say nothing of a reflexive defense when Diggs unloads a bit.
Diggs said the split from Pitt was not amicable. He had wanted to remain with the team, but the coaches repeatedly encouraged him to transfer. After a while, he relented and decided to leave because it became obvious he was not wanted.
“They basically wanted me to leave because they wanted to sign someone else,” Diggs said.
Diggs, a Williamsport, Pa., native, went on to say the Pitt coaches were “manipulators” because they made it seem like he would receive more playing time during the recruiting process.
“The walk-ons were playing more at the end of the season than I was,” Diggs said. “[The coaches] made it seem like it was because of my injuries, but it wasn’t.”
Again, the defensiveness of the program screams, “The walk-ons were playing more because even they were better than you!” I also feel the need to dispute the “manipulators” accusation. Diggs is the first player leaving Pitt under Dixon to complain bitterly. Dante Milligan left because of a lack of playing time, but hardly went crazy about it (of course he still had plenty of time to his eligibility).
The final thing about this, from a planning standpoint is that it only leaves Pitt with 3 scholarships to offer for next year — Fields, Young and Biggs — rather than 4 (barring any other transfers). That’s a little frustrating, especially if Travon Woodall Darnell Dodson (remember him?) is still in Pitt’s plan after his JUCO stint. He would be part of the 2009 signing class.
On the plus side, Jermaine Dixon’s signing will give the team a scholarship opening in 2010 where at present there are none.
The point of the analogy is this: If a student goes to every class, office hours, extra help session, etc. and gets a 2.0, he loses his scholarship. If an athlete tries his best, goes to every practice, etc. and fails to perform at a level commensurate with the program’s expectations, he loses his scholarship. Now in both cases, the person tried really hard. But that isn’t the issue. That’s why the analogy was used, to try to point out to the people that said “Oh what a raw deal he got, he tried” that TRYING has very little to do with it. Academics and athletics are BOTH big businesses, and both are meritocracies.
Yes, you are correct, there are not quantitative standards for athletic scholarships. It is not EXACTLY the same as academic scholarships. But both require performance levels that can totally ignore how nice of a guy someone is or how they played/studied their best/hardest. Its an analogy. Not an identical situation, but absolutely an instructive example of a similarly structured system.
I never suggested Kendall didn’t produce. I was using him — as an extreme example, which I noted — to show that in sports there is no way to quantify a player’s value to the team. Here’s a less extreme example: We read in the PG this year that Wallace is a great teammate and gets everyone pumped up. He’s never going to step on the court, but I don’t think his scholarship will be yanked (pending the severity of his injury). Oh wait, here’s a better example: Chevy once said that the toughest player he ever played against was Kendall in practice. This was at a time when Kendall was not playing regular minutes. So, it follows that a player can be of value to a team without putting up numbers — big or small — in statistical categories.
Speaking of Chevy, I did not make this point clearly, and I apologize. What I was trying to say, and I closed my argument with this, was that coach’s can mis-judge a player’s abilities both ways. When Chevy first stepped on the court for Pitt, Coach Howland wanted him to play on the wing. It didn’t work; he is a low-post player, regardless of whether or not he fits the physical model of that type of player. What would have happened, then, if Chevy had quit the team after a few games, transferred, and became a star playing on the block somewhere? Howland would have looked like a fool, and, in fact, he called himself an “idiot” for not letting Chevy play his natural position from day one. Howland initially was wrong when evaluating Chevy. It seems like Jamie was wrong in his evaluation of Diggs. Again, that’s not Diggs’ fault, and I don’t see why he should be punished. Furthermore, perhaps Jamie is still wrong. I’ll admit it’s unlikely, but there is a possibility of Coach Dixon still having a “move Chevy down low” moment with Diggs. I can hear you howling already, but anything is possible.
I never said that there is “too brief a history of athletic scholarships.” I said the environment of Division I athletics is moving at such a rapid pace that we probably won’t really be able to understand it until we look back on the time when Internet recruiting sites blew up, blogs (like this one) became popular and domain names like fireronzook.com became a part of our discussions. These things have a direct impact on the kids because the coaches are under such pressure that — as was noted earlier in an earlier post — they are going to promise the moon to every kid because they need to win. This is not the same as the ’90s, and it’s not the same as the ’80s. We can discuss the history of athletic scholarships, but this chapter is nowhere near complete.
